Patrick (Woody) Harrison Personal Injury and Medical Malpractice Attorney Columbus, IN
Case Study # 2
Medical Malpractice
Background
In 1996, a 52-year-old patient was having some urinary tract problems and sought treatment from a urologist. The urologist determined that the prostate gland was enlarged and biopsied what might have been a tumor. The hospital pathologist read the biopsy results as benign, and a co-worker in that same department signed off on them. The man was told he did not have cancer, went home and celebrated with his wife.
More than two years later, after a game of football with his family on Thanksgiving, the man suffered significant back pain and went to his family physician for treatment. The physician ordered a bone scan and was dismayed to find cancer throughout the man’s body. The patient died of prostate cancer at the age of 55.
Challenge
This was a case of hospital malpractice and medical misdiagnosis. The main challenge with this case was the statute of limitations for medical malpractice suits which, in Indiana, states that the malpractice suit must be filed within two years from the date the alleged malpractice occurred. But, because of the medical misdiagnosis, the man did not know he even had cancer within that two-year period.
Woody Harrison took this case to the Indiana Supreme Court, which ruled that the statute of limitations was unconstitutional in this medical malpractice situation, since the man had no way of knowing that he had cancer within that two-year period. The case went to a medical review panel, which decided there was medical misdiagnosis and hospital malpractice.
Results
This hospital malpractice suit was filed and eventually, the health care providers paid their limits, and the patient compensation fund also paid. The total was the maximum allowable in pre-1999 cases, which was $750,000. For his expert work in this case, Woody Harrison was chosen Co-Trial Lawyer of the Year for the State of Indiana in 1999.
812.375.0911
With law offices in Columbus, IN (Bartholomew County), Patrick (Woody) Harrison represents clients in the communities of Columbus, Edinburgh, Indianapolis, Greenwood, Southport, Franklin, North Vernon, Seymour and throughout Indiana.
