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Undiagnosed Pneumonia Case Settled
Posted by: Tom Warner
March 04, 2009
Topic: Medical Malpractice
Warner Law Offices is proud to announce that attorneys Tom Warner and Anne Pankratz recently settled a medical malpractice se involving the death of a young father and husband who died from bacterial pneumonia. The patient lived in a small town in western Kansas and had been seeing his physician's assistant for ongoing respiratory symptoms. Neither the physician's assistant nor the supervising doctor ordered a chest x-ray or empirical anti-biotics despite the patient's classic symptoms of community acquired bacterial pneumonia. The patient visited the supervising physician in the emergency room but the doctor failed to perform an appropriate workup and simply assumed he had a viral condition. When a different physician's assistant saw this patient, he was worked up for bacterial pneumonia but by this time it was too late and the patient died. As is typically the case, the doctor refused to accept responsibility for missing the diagnosis and failing to provide appropriate treatment. Mr. Warner and Ms Pankratz filed suit for wrongful death and enlisted two of the top pneumonia doctors in the country as expert witnesses. The case was tried once in federal court but the jury hung 7-1 in favor of the patient's family. As the case was being prepared for a second trial in federal court, the case settled at mediation a week before trial for a confidential but substantial sum of money that will take care of the surviving spouse for the rest of her life. The settlement money was invested in a structured annuity for the benefit of the patient's wife that will pay out over the course of her lifetime
