Jury Awards Ohio Woman Over One Million Dollars in Medical Malpractice Suit

A jury has awarded an Ohio woman and her husband a combined amount of over one million dollars in a medical malpractice suit.  According to Cincinnati, Victoria Stamper was left permanently unable to take deep breaths after a delayed diagnosis. The jury found that Dr. Michael Draznik was negligent when he treated her.

Stamper started suffering from abdominal pain in 2009. As a result, she underwent two different surgeries, partial hysterectomies, which did not relieve her abdominal pain. Her symptoms were apparently indicative of a perforated bowel, but it was not detected or confirmed with a CT scan until she was already very ill.

As a result, Stamper had acute respiratory distress syndrome and lost 20% of her lung function, according to tests from before and after the surgery. She now has trouble breathing and uses a walker because of it.

Stamper was awarded $700,000, and her husband was awarded $425,000. Medical malpractice suits have the highest average damage awards, at $600,000.

Records show that this is not the first medical malpractice lawsuit Draznik has been involved in, nor is it the first case in which he failed to order a CT scan in a timely fashion. Most of these cases were among the 95-96% of personal injury cases that get settled pretrial. In the only one of these cases that did make it to trial, however, the jury sided with Draznik.

Typically, in a medical malpractice suit there are certain things the injured has to prove.

Someone who has suffered an injury or loss due to medical malpractice should always consult an appropriate lawyer for advice, but the basic requirements for a malpractice claim are that the plaintiff needs to be able to prove that he or she hired the doctor and the doctor agreed to be hired, that the doctor in question was negligent, and that negligence caused injury which caused damages.