Representative Cases – How We’ve Helped
In order to provide our clients deeper insight into the kinds of cases handled by Swartz & Reed, LLP, we have compiled some examples of the military medical malpractice cases we have handled in the past.
We invite you to browse the following representative cases to find out how our firm has helped current and former military personnel and their families obtain fair and reasonable compensation for medical-related injuries and fatalities. To find out how our firm may be able to represent you in a catastrophic injury or wrongful death case, contact us today.
Representative Cases
Failure to diagnose and treat Group B Strep causing brain damage to a newborn
D.B. was on active duty in the U.S. Army when she entered Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, for the birth of her daughter. An emergency Cesarean section (C-section) was undertaken because of fetal distress.
Before the delivery, the doctors caring for her knew that D.B. suffered from an infection known as chorioamnionitis. Her amniotic fluid was tested and found to be harboring the Group B Streptococcal (Group B Strep or GBS) bacteria.
Even though she was a known GBS carrier, D.B. and her newborn baby girl were discharged from the hospital without any testing of the baby for GBS. D.B. was told that her baby was “normal” and, even though the baby was at risk for a GBS infection, D.B. was given no instructions to look out for any changes in the baby’s condition.
Less than two weeks later, the baby was admitted to the local civilian Children’s Health Center where she was diagnosed with neonatal Group B Strep sepsis (systemic infection) and cerebral meningitis which caused her permanent brain damage, seizure disorder, and motor and cognitive disorders. As a result of her brain damage, her I.Q. is 60-70.
An administrative claim was filed with the U.S. Army under the Federal Tort Claims Act because the obstetrical staff never informed the pediatric staff that D.B. tested positive for GBS. Furthermore, the pediatrician who was present at the delivery made no effort to learn why the emergency C-section was performed.
Simply put, there was no communication between the obstetric team and the pediatric team, even though there was a specific place in the medical record to record precisely this type of critical information.
The case ended in a multi-million dollar settlement after suit was filed in federal court in Tacoma, Washington.
Negligence at a U.S. Army Health Clinic in Germany leading to blindness, deafness, and spastic quadriplegia in one month old
D.M. was a Sergeant in the U.S. Army, stationed in West Germany, when his one-month-old twin daughter (D) developed a fever and became irritable. D’s mother took her to the U.S. Army’s Health Clinic in Bamberg, West Germany. D had a temperature of just over 100 degrees, she was whining, and had not eaten for a day.
The baby was never seen by a doctor, but instead was given a cursory examination by a physicians’ assistant (PA). D cried when her neck was touched, and when the PA attempted to examine her throat with a wooden tongue depressor, the baby resisted so much that the stick broke in two. The PA never examined D’s neck for mobility, and no doctor ever saw the baby.
After a less than five-minute examination, D’s mother was told the baby suffered from “thrush,” a minor throat condition. Over the next day and a half, D’s temperature rose to 102, and her mother took her back to the clinic where she was finally seen by a doctor. The physician diagnosed D as suffering from possible meningitis and, without starting her on antibiotics, told her mother to drive her to the U.S. Army Hospital at Nuremberg, more than an hour away.
When D arrived at the Army Hospital, a spinal tap showed cloudy fluid (a strong sign of spinal meningitis), however several hours passed before D was given her first dose of antibiotics. D began to have seizures in the hospital due to Group B Strep meningitis.
She became blind, deaf, and lost control of her arms and legs (spastic quadriplegia). She required feeding by a tube. Her future care costs were estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars. As if D’s injuries were bad enough, her twin sister (S) also became infected with the GBS organism and suffered a less severe case of spinal meningitis.
Because the negligent failure of the U.S. Army health care providers occurred in Germany, a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act was not possible. Therefore, administrative claims were filed (using the government SF-95 Form) with the U.S. Army Claims Service at Ft. Meade, Maryland, under the Military Claim Act for both D and S.
After exchanging information (including opinions from experts on the negligent conduct of the Army’s clinic and hospital staffs and economists on the cost of caring for the twins), a multi-million dollar settlement was reached.
Army doctor’s anesthesia error and failure to recognize cause of inability to urinate causes permanent damage to bladder requiring reconstruction surgery
R.G., the wife of an Army Sergeant, underwent abdominal laparoscopic surgery for the removal of ovarian cysts at the U.S. Army Hospital in Nuremberg, Germany. During the operation, her bowel was perforated and then repaired.
After the surgery, her doctors thought that R.G. was dehydrated because she was not urinating. She was given large amounts of fluid by IV, but still did not pass urine. Although she complained of severe pain in her pelvis, a full bladder, and the inability to urinate for four days, R.G. was sent home from the hospital.
She returned to the hospital emergency room the next day because she was still in pain and unable to urinate. A catheter was inserted in her urethra and more than 2.5 liters of urine came out. She was sent home. The next day, she came back to the ER, and almost another liter of urine came out when she was catheterized. By then, however, her bladder had been so over distended that it suffered nerve damage.
Her urinary bladder became incontinent (unable to control the outflow of urine) and she was never able to control her bladder function again. She developed recurrent urinary tract infections. A surgical procedure to reconstruct her urinary bladder as attempted but her bladder problems were not improved.
A claim was filed for R.G. under the Military Claims Act because the hospital staff and doctors failed to recognize that her inability to urinate was caused by the anesthesia she was given during her operation not dehydration. By not catheterizing her and giving her huge quantities of IV fluids, they destroyed her bladder.
Her case resulted in a multi-million dollar settlement with the U.S. Army Claims Service after the doctor who attempted to repair her bladder informed the Army that its negligence caused her to suffer permanent loss of bladder function.
Defective crib at Walter Reed Army Medical Center leads to infant strangulation
The one-year-old daughter of Army Sergeant G.L. was strangled to death when her neck became trapped between the canopy and rail of the hospital crib she was in while undergoing tests at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
The cribs used at Walter Reed had a “safety” canopy that worked like “gull wings” over the top of the crib. A latch on the top was supposed to keep an infant from raising the top and climbing out of the crib. However, the latch mechanism was defective allowing the top to be closed without latching shut.
An infant could push top up with its head, becoming trapped between the canopy and the crib rail. As the infant pulled its head back into the crib, the canopy would close down on the baby’s neck like a guillotine, cutting off the air and asphyxiating the baby. Hospital cribs of this design had been implicated in the strangulation deaths of two other infants at Air Force hospitals and there was a recall and safety modification that had not been made to the crib at Walter Reed.
A Defense Logistics Agency Product Safety Alert warned of the danger of the crib and the need for a “retrofit” to reduce the risk of strangulation, but Walter Reed did not take the crib out of service, nor warn their nurses and doctors of the danger. A “recall” notice from the US Food and Drug Administration also went unheeded. The “retrofit kit” needed to reduce the risk of strangulation was never installed on the Walter Reed crib.
An administrative claim was made to the U.S. Army Claims Service. After six months, when the Army showed no interest in discussing settlement, a lawsuit was filed against the United States in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Also sued in the federal court case was the manufacturer of the hospital crib as it was learned that the manufacturer had never tested this model of hospital cribs for safety.
Following pre-trial discovery involving experts on crib design and safety engineering, as well as extensive research into how this accident was easily avoidable, a million dollar settlement was reached with the United States and the crib manufacturer.
Navy doctors fail to treat infant’s ear infection leading to permanent deafness
The two-year-old son of Navy Petty Officer D.S. was taken by his mother to the hospital at the U.S. Naval Station in Norfolk, Virginia, when he complained of pain in both his ears. The doctor who examined their son reassured her that he was fine and sent him home with a prescription of pain medication.
When the pain worsened, she returned to the hospital and learned that he suffered a severe case of otitis media (middle ear infection) caused by Streptococcal bacteria. By then, the Strep infection caused their son to become deaf in both ears. While any loss of hearing is serious, it is particularly devastating in a case such as this when the child is just learning to talk because learning to talk depends on the ability to hear and imitate the sounds of words.
Complicating matters further was that fact that this Navy family was bi-lingual, speaking both English and Spanish. Following the filing of an administrative claim with the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy’s Claims Branch in Washington, D.C., a lawsuit brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act in the U.S. District Court.
After extensive pretrial discovery involving the questioning of medical experts in pediatric medicine, a settlement was reached without the necessity for a trial.
Note: The Examples above are some of the military medical malpractice cases we have handled in the past. Case outcomes and results depend upon many factors that are unique to each case. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar result in any future case undertaken by Swartz & Reed, LLP. These examples merely provide a framework for understanding the kinds of cases we undertake.
Other medical negligence cases handled by Swartz & Reed, LLP, not against the United States
- Paralysis caused by failure of “Code Team”* to respond to hospitalized patient for 22 minutes
- Death of mother following birth of her first child due to undiagnosed necrotizing fasciitis +
- Death of young mother due to failure to diagnose a bleeding cerebral aneurysm (aneurismal subarachnoid hemorrhage)
- Replacement of both hips due to a vascular necrosis caused by excessive steroid treatment
- Death caused by AIDS resulting from HIV-tainted blood used for a transfusion
- Unnecessary hysterectomy resulting from misdiagnosing the severity of uterine fibroids
- Unnecessary hysterectomy caused by misdiagnosis of benign ovarian tumor as cancer
- Death of 11-year-old child caused by failure to diagnose a vascular malformation in the brain
- Death of young woman caused by a failure to diagnose and treat a heart attack in the ER
- Death of unborn child caused by eclampsia (toxemia) of pregnancy
- Death of young woman from eclampsia (toxemia) of pregnancy during labor
- Death of young woman due to a failure to diagnose and treat preeclampsia of pregnancy
- Cerebral palsy and brain damage because the baby was not delivered in a timely fashion
- Negligent handling of shoulder dystocia (shoulders too large to pass thru the birth canal) resulting in brachial plexus injury, loss of use of arm
- Massive infection from common bile duct injury during cholecystectomy (gall bladder surgery)
- Death from lung cancer resulted from negligent reading of chest x-rays by family doctor
- Failure to timely diagnose nasopharyngeal cancer results in spread of the tumor into the skull
- Loss of testicle resulting from failure to diagnose and treat testicular torsion
- Death resulting from failure to diagnose an abdominal aortic aneurysm by radiologist
- Death resulting from failure to diagnose cerebral subarachnoid hemorrhage from aneurysm
- Suicide death of patient who was hospitalized for depression but not placed on “suicide watch”
- Uterine rupture during labor while attempting vaginal delivery after four prior Cesarean sections
- Paralysis resulting from inadequate blood and tissue oxygenation
* "Code Team" is the staff which performs resuscitations for patients who have had a cardiac or respiratory arrest within four minutes to avoid permanent brain injury.
+ Necrotizing fasciitis is rapid tissue death resulting from bacterial infection
