HMA Law – Blog

A Birmingham-based composer who was left needing a wheelchair has won his negligence case against a West Midlands hospital.

Andrew Downes, 61, from Hagley in Worcestershire, was admitted to Russells Hall Hospital in 2009, after a fall at his home.

Medical staff failed to diagnose a fractured back and he later suffered a complete spinal cord injury.

The Dudley group of hospitals said more training had been put in place.

Despite complaining of severe back pain, medical staff failed to send him for an X-ray.

Mr Downes, who has composed music for orchestras across the world, as well as TV and radio scores, was instead treated for a suspected urine infection.

He told the BBC: “I was put on morphine for the pain which left me disorientated and drifting in and out of consciousness and one time I woke up and I had lost all feeling in my legs.

“It was a terrifying feeling. To be walking around one day, and then unable to move little more than 24 hours later was beyond belief.”

Paula Clark, chief executive of The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust said: “We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Mr Andrew Downes for failing to diagnose his injury.”

Mr Downes’s solicitors said a final settlement had yet to be agreed, although the hospital trust said it would provide financial security to Mr Downes and his family for the future.

The hospital has already completed several interim payments to help make Mr Downes’s home wheelchair accessible.

Many professionals today are very careful to fulfil their contractual obligations to their employees. This is because of fear of having to undergo a professional negligence claim which can be greatly time consuming and can also severely damage their reputation.

However, cases of professional negligence are still common, but many employees choose to ignore it. This is mainly because many professional’s initial reaction is one of indignation, as they may feel that their professionalism and their reputations are being brought into question. Despite this, you as an employee must remember that the claim is a purely professional manner, and if your superiors are not providing the services specified in your contract, a claim is completely justified, and you should therefore look into consulting professional negligence solicitors.

This is usually the case, as most professionals are aware not to be grossly negligent. Instead, most claims are of a lack of services provided to the employee, or that the current services are inadequate.

Another reason why many claims are ignored is because many people do not know what professional negligence actually entails, and are unsure about the requirements needed to make a claim.

First and foremost, the professional must be contractually obligated to care for the employee. This mainly refers to the standard of care that the employee can expect, given the circumstances of their contract.

Also, as a result of the professional negligence, the party filing the suit must stand to lose something, whether it is an immediate loss or the prospect of a loss of an opportunity in the future.

An important thing to remember is that claims can also include financial loss. These cases however are well known for being difficult to determine, as there can be no relationship between the parties in tandem with the employee’s contract. You must be very careful when filing these claims, as they often include the advice of financial experts which can potentially be even more costly.

Furthermore, before filing for a claim, you should thoroughly go over the terms of your contract, as the professional’s legal responsibility may have been intentionally limited to providing the bare minimum to the employee, and will therefore technically not be considered as professional negligence.

The main factor to remember is that when filing a claim, the claimant must be prepared to be subjected to arduous examination by insurers on behalf of the professional. Another important thing to keep in mind is that the solicitors you hire will be cautious of losing a case to well experienced professional insurers, and will therefore not act as aggressively as you may have initially thought, but will instead look to reach a reasonable settlement. In conclusion, a strong case with plenty of evidence will usually succeed.

Dentsply International has announced that it will be suing a law firm that it claims displayed professional negligence in losing a breach of contract case that was filed against it, this losing the dental device maker more than $15 million.

The law firm had represented them in a breach of contract lawsuit that had been filed against it by Guidance Endodontics over a supply deal for dental obturators, endodontic files and ovens

The courts eventually awarded in favour of Guidance, with http://www.massdevice.com stating that Dentsply had to fork out “$4 million for the breach of contract, punitive damages of $40 million and legal fees of more than $3.5 million, according to court documents. The judge in the case later reduced the punitive damages to $4 million, according to the documents.”

Not the company is making a professional negligence lawsuit against the law firm that represented it, claiming that Lewis & Roca and Gulley were guilty of professional malpractice as they ”failed to develop a theory of the case prior to trial,” “failed to conduct adequate and appropriate discovery,” “failed to retain appropriate experts or elicit necessary expert testimony,” “failed to object to erroneous jury instructions and invited error,” “failed to make appropriate motions” and “failed to preserve key issues for appeal.”

The lawsuit continues “As a direct and proximate result of defendants’ professional negligence, breach of contract, and breaches of the applicable standard of care and fiduciary duties, Guidance obtained a verdict against clients in excess of $44 million dollars, and clients sustained damages in excess of $15 million dollars.”

There has been no comment from the law firm as of yet about the case.

Two more professional negligence lawsuits have been filed against the NFL by former players who claim that governing body of American Football failed to protect players from the after-effects of suffering concussions on the field.

The lawsuit was filed in Philadelphia and blames the NFL for yet more cases of concussion-related dementia and brain disease, in addition to claiming that the NFL hid vital medical evidence about the risk associated with getting a concussion.

The National Football League is also believed to have failed to inform players that they risked permanent damage if they returned to the game too soon after suffering a concussion.

One lawsuit names eight former players and five spouses as plaintiffs; the other includes 42 former players and 23 spouses. Amongst the players making the professional negligence claims are Leroy Kelly and Keith Byars.

A host of other similar lawsuits have sprung up across the United States and it is looking increasingly likely that the NFL will be forced to offer some form of compensation.

The Commonwealth Ports Authority has announced that it will be filing a professional negligence lawsuit against a Texan company after the group produced a faulty design for the construction of the West Tinian Sirport facility in Singapore.

The CPA are looking to claim $1 million in the lawsuit, in which they accuse Leo A. Daly Co of professional negligence, breach of contract, fraud and professional malpractice in addition to providing designs that are in violation of the Consumer Protection Act and the CNMI Building Safety Code.

The group are claiming that the Texan company used its international reputation to secure the contract before violating it in a number of areas, with the professional negligence lawyers representing CPA commenting “For example, [Leo A. Daly's] work was not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, nor was it compliant with typhoon and earthquake standards applicable to Tinian.”

The company provided construction management services in addition to designing the improvements to facilities that was carried out at West Tinian Airport, completing the contract in 2008.