DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients' cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client's case.

$915,000 Medical Malpractice/Wrongful Death Settlement

It started as most things do, with reasonable intentions. In this case the victim, a gentleman in his mid 70's—highly educated, highly successful—was diagnosed with a recurrent form of cancer. Upon learning of the diagnosis, he did what most of us would do, and called an oncologist.Our client had no reason to believe that the oncologist, or the office staff, would provide anything other than top-notch services. Unfortunately this was not the case. Instead, when he went to the office to receive a scheduled dose of chemotherapy he received a substantial overdose.

In This Case, Negligence Had Tragic Consequences

The effects of the overdose were quick and severe. Our client lost his ability to communicate, lost his ability to comprehend basic information. He became a shell of his former self, until he passed away some two months later.

Our client's distraught family came to us in a time of need. Wrongful death and medical malpractice cases are often commenced during periods of severe stress for the family of the victim. Part of our job as the attorneys is to recognize this stress, and remove as much of the burden as possible from the family.

In this instance, we immediately went about having the victim's spouse appointed as administrator of his Estate. While this was ongoing, we obtained all of the relevant medical records and had them reviewed by our medical experts who confirmed what we already knew from experience: that malpractice had occurred.

We Filed a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit As Soon As We Were Able

Once this process of having the spouse appointed as administrator was complete we proceeded to prepare and file a complaint in the New York State Supreme Court. The Complaint was the initiating document in the wrongful death/medical malpractice lawsuit. After the lawsuit had been filed we aggressively went after the medical practice, seeking to obtain as much information as possible about the individual who made the error, how the error occurred, and what policies (if any) the office had in place to prevent such an error.

We then proceeded with a deposition of the Plaintiff, in this case the administrator of the estate, and were set to take the deposition of the defendant when his lawyers came calling, seeking to settle the case.

Settlement negotiations were drawn out over several weeks, and ultimately culminated in our obtaining a nearly seven-figure settlement for the victim's estate. The entire case, from the date of the victim's death to receipt of the settlement, took nearly two years.

Will the settlement it bring him back? Obviously not. Will it, in some way, help the family? We hope so. Will it ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again in this particular office? We believe it will.