A $3M verdict . . . for Bell's palsy?

Bell’s palsy is a condition that is self-limiting in most cases. Typically treatment consists of steroids, antiviral medications and time.

The physician was found not to be negligent, but the couple was awarded the large verdict nonetheless.

Comments

Anonymous
Strange jury finding: not negligent in care, but did not disclose all options for treatment which supposedly resulted in harm? And exactly what outcome do they suppose would have resulted otherwise? That is ridiculous. What kind of duty do they posit exists such that there is no finding of negligence but an award anyway?
This is a defective jury finding. The judge–if he is competent to do his job–should set this aside at the trial level. This does not even deserve appellate review.
Ian Furst
Did you read the rest of the article? Under-treating Bell’s would be one thing but miss diagnosing a stroke is another. I’m not saying that it’s right – just that it’s not out of the realm of normal for malpractice in the US.
Anonymous
OMG. You have got to be kidding me. Is it April 1st today? Just goes to show what happens when you get 12 idiots on a jury.
SarahW
Read the article again. The ER doc missed a stroke, he misdiagnosed the patient with Bell’s Palsy, and the patient suffered more severe and long term injury as a result of the missed diagnosis.
Anonymous
It’s a stroke not Bell’s. He missed the diagnosis. Read the article. I can’t tell you how many times I see pts. with Bell’s who’ve been worked up for strokes. I sometimes see them a week or two later – that can affect prognosis if they’ve not been treated by then but I’ve never known anyone getting sued for not treating with steroids.
feminizedwesternmale
Ian Furst said:
“miss diagnosing a stroke is another…”
And, Dr. Furst, what exactly is the treatment for ischemic stroke, and to what degree or probability would that treatment be beneficial?
If doctors cannot control their hyperventilation, how can we expect it of the patient?
Anonymous
What the story leaves out is that in Wisconsin medical malpractice trials (or at least the few in which I was involved) the jury is given a verdict form that directs them to decide whethere there is negligence, whether that negligence was a proximate cause of the plaintiff’s damages and to decide damages even in the event that there is no negligence or proximate cause. The theory being that in case the jury’s determination of no negligence is overturned or there is a re-trial, the new jury will not be tasked with deciding damages. What this should mean for this case is that even though there was a damages award, the plaintiff’s will not receive anything because there was no finding of negligence.
Anonymous
I agree that something is wrong with the verdict. What exactly would have changed had the doctor diagnosed a stroke? Probably not a thing.
Anonymous
I second the question. What different treatment would have applied if the patient had been correctly diagnosed with a stroke? You can’t always tell the two apart until time passes. If the patient had passed the window for thrombolysis, is there any other treatment available?
I suspect the outcome would be the same regardless of whether the diagnosis of stroke or Bell’s was made at that time.
Anonymous
It’s pretty difficult to reach any conclusion from the meager details in this newspaper.
It’s as difficult to tell if a doctor committed malpractice from a newspaper article as it is to tell if a jury got it right.
It could have been a situation where the cases were submitted on interrogatories, and the jury thought they had to answer them all when they could have stopped after the first with regard to negligence.
Got it wrong
Actually, you can start treatment to reduce the chance of repeat strokes; and it is also the case that rapid rehab can make the difference between full or partial recovery or better or worse recovery of function.
There’s no indication that the window for thrombolysis was passed, FWIW, or from what I read that it was even an ischmic event.
The top post is a bit of a botch all around. There seems to be no verdict against the doctor at all.
Bell’s vs stroke
No, court records do indicate a special verdict was entered…FWIW.
Not to put too fine a point on it – “missing the diagnosis” may have been pretty reasonable here,
if the patient had normal blood pressures, no history of stroke, and couldn’t move his facial muscles up top as well as below…..but there may have been a failure to communicate the smaller possibility of a particular kind of stroke.The danger is a small stroke in the brain stem can mimic Bell’s palsy. My guess is the patient wasn’t warned of this possibility, and went on to have another event, was throwing clots or something – and he ended up much worse off than if his stroke had been identified before the followup event. Impossible to know, of course, without any access to records. The doctor may have insisted it was Bell’s, to the exclusion of explaining the possibility of taking action to rule out the brainstem or basilar artery stroke, or of a new event occurring, or what to watch for, etc.
It’s hard to tell what really went on in court with that atrocious reporting, and of course, nothing but the most cursory account of events, there isn’t a really clear picture of what exactly happened to the patient.

A $3M verdict . . . for Bell’s palsy?

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