Jurors, Preventable Medical Error and Accountability

Bruce Bierhans

Attorney
(866) 735-1102 Ext 540

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My own personal experience this weekend served to remind me how and why it is so difficult to get jurors in medical negligence cases to appreciate and acknowledge the concept of preventable medical error.

My mother in law is battling an agressive lymphoma and received last chance chemotherapy treatments over the weekend. The care she received from her caregivers was compassionate and remarkable. It will not be forgotten by any of us.
Then, on Sunday evening, 60 Minutes presented the piece involving the near tragedy experienced by Dennis Quaids family when his twins almost died after receiving two monstrous overdoses of Heparin. The Heparin vials were poorly marked, but human error clearly caused the dosage errors. As pointed out in the piece, this was "preventable medical error."
We all have stories or experiences involving marvelous medical professionals that do what they do every day...save lives. However, our judicial system is one based upon the concept of "accountability"; meaning that our system only works when professionals, including physicians and nurses, are held accountable for the preventable damages that they cause. Our challenge in representing our clients is to convince juries that while we all want our doctors to be heroes, they can and do make mistakes; often with horrific consequences. When those mistakes occur, they have to be accountable. Without accountability, in government or the law, we have chaos.
A while back, a former client contacted me about a potential legal negligence case in which a real estate attorney made an error resulting in a large financial loss. The client thought I wouldn't take the case because "all lawyers cover for each other". Upon investigating the case and concluding that negligence had been committed, I took the case and we ultimately prevailed. Why??? Because the error was easily preventable and the lawyer was accountable. That's the law!