McCumber Daniels Wins Complete Defense Verdict For Tampa General Hospital In Medical Malpractice Case

McCumber Daniels is pleased to announce a recent defense verdict in favor of Tampa General Hospital. In the case of Margaret H. Warren, as Personal Representative of the Estate of David M. Warren vs. Florida Health Sciences Center, Inc., d/b/a Tampa General Hospital, Andrew R. McCumber and Derek M. Daniels tried the case on behalf of Tampa General Hospital over eight days in Hillsborough County in front of the Honorable Perry Little. Russell Artille and Scott Whitley of Morgan, Colling & Gilbert represented the plaintiff.

The case involved a claim of medical negligence for the alleged wrongful death of David M. Warren. Mr. Warren was a 64 year old retired fighter pilot with a long history of an aortic aneurysm. After suffering abdominal pain for about two days, he presented to MacDill Air Force Base Hospital where the physicians there, after taking CT scans, suspected that his aneurysm was leaking. They sent him to Tampa General Hospital’s emergency room that same day. At Tampa General, his physician determined that the aneurysm likely was not leaking and that his abdominal pain was gastric in nature. However, his physician decided that because of the size of his aneurysm, he should be transported urgently to Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas where he could have the thoracoabdominal aneurysm repaired. Methodist Hospital is one of only a handful of centers across the country that can perform the type of surgery that Mr. Warren needed.

Mr. Warren was to be transferred by fixed wing aircraft the following morning. The transfer never occurred, and at 3:00 p.m. the following day, Mr. Warren’s aneurysm ruptured and he died at Tampa General Hospital.

Plaintiff’s central theory was that had the physician’s order to transfer Mr. Warren been followed, he would have undergone the life saving surgery in Houston which would have had better than an 80 percent chance of success.

Plaintiff’s experts were Dr. Craig Carter, Dr. Daniel Abbott, and Dr. Joseph Coselli, the surgeon who was going to receive Mr. Warren in Houston and perform the surgery. Dr. Carter testified that Tampa General Hospital deviated from the standard of care by failing to follow the physician’s order to transfer Mr. Warren for the emergency surgery. Dr. Carter also testified that had he been transferred in a timely fashion, he would have survived. Dr. Abbott testified that the Tampa General social worker who was to arrange the transfer deviated from the applicable standard of care by failing to notify the physician when it became apparent that the transfer was not going to occur, not following chain of command by notifying her supervisor that there were problems in arranging the transfer, and failing to more aggressively pursue Mr. Warren’s military health insurance to guarantee payment for the flight. Dr. Coselli testified that his chances of survival were better than 80 percent if the surgery was performed urgently.

The plaintiff also read the deposition at trial of one of Defendant’s experts, Dr. Richard Neville, who testified that he agreed with Dr. Coselli’s estimation that Mr. Warren had an 80 percent or better chance of survival had the surgery proceeded in an elective or urgent fashion but that he had a 50/50 chance of survival if the surgery had to proceed in an emergent fashion.

The defense presented expert testimony from Dr. John Pigott and Dr. Robert Bitterman. Dr. Pigott testified that the hospital did not deviate from the standard of care as to Mr. Warren, as determined by his physician, and did not have a medical emergency. Dr. Pigott also testified that based on his experience doing transplant surgery and organ harvesting in different parts of the country on fixed wing aircraft, Mr. Warren would not have made it in time to have the surgery. Dr. Bitterman testified that the hospital social work department complied with the standard of care. There was also substantial factual testimony from the key treating physician, his attorney, the hospital social workers, the Director of the Social Work Department, and an employee of the Military’s HMO.

The key treating physician testified that he executed an affidavit that was damaging to Tampa General’s position in exchange for an agreement from Plaintiff not to sue him.

After eight days of trial, on November 10, 2004, the jury of 4 men and 2 women took approximately 3 ½ hours to deliberate and return a complete defense verdict.