From VerdictSearch New Jersey

ER doc prevails in patient's suit over embolism

Jurors in Bergen County have rendered a defense verdict in a medical-malpractice action brought by a woman who was treated at Hackensack University Medical Center in September 2008 for injuries she had received three weeks earlier, when she was hit by a car while traveling in Poland. The plaintiff had gone right to the hospital after returning from her trip; a doctor at the hospital's emergency room evaluated her injuries, including a broken tibia/fibula, and prescribed a prophylactic dose of anticoagulant. She returned to the ER two days later, suffering from pulmonary emboli. Her suit alleged the emboli were caused by deep vein thrombosis in her leg, and that she suffered permanent lung damage as a result. The defense argued the ER doctor was not obligated to provide more than one dose of anticoagulant, and that the plaintiff had exhibited no signs of DVT or pulmonary emboli upon being evaluated at the ER.

Chudziak v. Hewitt
Bergen County

$950K for motorist whose car was sent into telephone pole

A Camden County jury has awarded damages of $750,000 to a 37-year-old shipping clerk whose vehicle was sent hurtling into a telephone pole after a January 2009 crash at the intersection of White Horse Pike and Evergreen Avenue, in Somerdale. The plaintiff's spouse was awarded $200,000 for loss of consortium. Liability was not disputed; the plaintiff was diagnosed with a herniated lumbar disc, and was recommended for fusion but had declined to undergo surgery as of the date of trial. The defense argued that the plaintiff's injuries stemmed from pre-existing conditions, and interposed a verbal threshold defense.

VIEW THE FULL CASE Edmondson v. Hernandez
Camden County

$4.07M recovery in suit over sedan's roof design

An Essex County jury has found in favor of a 45-year-old who suffered a broken neck in a July 2006 incident on the Garden State Parkway in which the rear tire of a pickup truck in an oncoming lane became detached from that vehicle, and impacted with the plaintiff's 2003 Nissan Altima. The plaintiff sued both the other driver and his truck's owner, as well as several entities within the Nissan corporate family. As to Nissan, it was alleged that the Altima's roof was defectively designed. The auto-maker claimed there were no problems with the 2003 Altima's roof design, and that the truck's tire had gone through the plaintiff's sedan's windshield. The claim against the other-driver-defendant settled for $500,000 pre-trial; the jury apportioned Nissan's liability at 85 percent, and determined that the damages totaled roughly $4.2 million.

VIEW THE FULL CASE Clanton v. Nissan North America
Essex County

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Largest New Jersey Jury Verdicts:

(2012 only; based on cases reported to VerdictSearch)

VERDICT	CASE	VENUE	DATE
$20,000,000	Silva v. Lopes	Union	March 14
$18,000,000	Reynolds et al. v. Roche Laboratories	Atlantic	June 29
$16,300,000	Patterson v. Irvington Board of Education	Essex	Oct. 12
$14,596,000	Basile v. DeGasperis	Sussex	Nov. 17
$7,346,363	Rocha v. Hugo Neu Schnitzer East	Middlesex	Jan. 9
$7,032,012	Brown v. Shoreline Grading Excavating	Gloucester	June 14
$6,300,000	Francisco v. Wang	Bergen	June 1
$6,000,000	Contino v. Gonzalez	Ocean	Jan. 25
$4,508,000	Wilkerson v. BT Prime Mover Co.	Camden	Feb. 14
$3,983,230	Tufaro v. Headquarters Plaza	Morris	March 6