"medical malpractice"

Published on: November 18, 2024

Over 100 people sue after cruise ship illness. Now, the cruise line is being accused of downplaying the numbers.

More than 100 passengers who traveled on P&O’s Ventura, a ship owned by Carnival Cruise Line, have filed suit after they say they got sick on board.

Attorneys for the passengers claim there were “repeated outbreaks” of illness on the ship between April and June. About 519 passengers reported for weeks about their symptoms of norovirus, a stomach bug that causes inflammation in the stomach and intestines and is highly contagious. The first outbreak allegedly took place in May during a two-week cruise around the Canary Islands.

In reporting from the BBC it was alleged that Carnival communicated that less than 1% of passengers experienced symptoms while Southampton health officials claimed the number was closer to 12% of passengers.

Published on: September 5, 2024

Doctor mistakenly removes man’s liver instead of his spleen. Now, his wife is planning to sue.

By Leesfield & Partners

The wife of a man who died during a surgery where his doctor removed his liver instead of his spleen is planning to sue, according to reporting from local news outlets.

The incident began when the man complained of feeling pain in his side while he and his wife visited their Florida rental property from Alabama. At the hospital, the man was allegedly planning to return to Alabama to see his usual doctor but was instead persuaded by a medical team in Florida to go ahead with the surgery, according to the family’s attorneys. Doctors are said to have “persuaded” him by explaining the potential risks that could arise if he delayed surgery.

A surgical pathology report listed the organ that was removed as a “grossly identifiable” liver that was partly torn. When removing the liver, the doctor tore blood vessels that caused “catastrophic blood loss resulting in death,” the wife’s attorneys said in a statement to local news outlets.

Published on: August 23, 2024

Man In Coma For 42 Days After Seeing Florida Doctor Is Eerily Similar To Cruise Ship Cases. A Look Back At Previous Medical Malpractice In The Cruise Ship Industry

By Leesfield & Partners

A Tampa doctor is under scrutiny and faces formal review from the Florida Department of Health after a patient who went to him for a cough and sore throat ended up in a 42-day coma.

The initial doctor’s visit happened in 2019 when the 75-year-old man said he had body aches, a cough and a sore throat. He returned 10 days later with “complaints of a deep cough” and “chest pains,” according to reporting from The Miami Herald. A complaint filed by the Florida Department of Health states that the doctor at the center of the incident did not examine the patient but prescribed prednisone, an Albuterol inhaler and Tramadol.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of the patient claims the doctor was not in the office that day and prescribed these medicines based on what he was told by an employee at the medical center. The patient returned a day later, complaining of increased chest pain. When he went to the hospital, two weeks after the first doctor’s visit, it was determined he had pneumonia and was in septic shock.

Published on: February 7, 2019

Leesfield & Partners files lawsuit against cruise line Holland America on behalf of stroke victim

By Leesfield & Partners

Lila Gale and her family were set to cruise in the Caribbean aboard the MS Zuiderdam when she sustained a stroke within 100 miles of Florida. The symptoms she displayed left no room for error and the Holland America Line (HAL) doctor diagnosed her with having sustained a stroke within minutes.

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With the severity of the condition, coupled with the proximity of the ship to Broward Health Medical Center – a comprehensive stroke center in Fort Lauderdale – a medical evacuation had to be ordered and implemented without delay. Instead, Lila received the most odious and deplorable treatment from HAL which ultimately doomed her health, causing irreversible brain damage.

Upon arrival to the ship’s infirmary, Lila was noted to be confused, drowsy and with slurred speech. A provisional diagnosis of “severe stroke” was made. At this very moment, a medical air-evacuation was both medically necessary and operationally feasible. However, against all common emergent medicine sense and standards, HAL’s doctor, Dr. Socrates Lopez did not order a medevac. Instead he intubated Lila and observed her health deteriorate for the next two hours without attempting to further treat his patient.

Published on: December 23, 2014

Cruise lines finally liable for medical malpractice committed on cruise ships

By Leesfield & Partners

For the longest times, cruise ship passengers were not allowed to bring cruise lines as defendants in medical malpractice claims to recover for the negligent acts of a doctor or a nurse when they were committed aboard a cruise ship. In almost every single scenario, passengers were left without anyone to sue. Injustice remained served for years, until today.

In its latest ruling, judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the previous law, Barbetta, was outdated, and allowed the family of a deceased cruise passenger to continue on with a lawsuit for medical malpractice against the cruise line, in this case, Royal Caribbean.

The Barbetta ruling was justified in the nature of the relationship between the passenger and the physician, and the carrier’s lack of control over that relationship. The Fifth Circuit Court ruled that “the work which a physician or a surgeon does . . . is under the control of the passengers themselves. It is their business, not the business of the carrier. . . . The master or owners of the ship cannot interfere in the treatment of the medical officer when he attends a passenger. He is not their servant engaged in their business, and subject to their control as to his mode of treatment.” [Secondly] “[a] ship’s physician is an independent medical expert engaged on the basis of his professional qualifications and carried on board a ship for the convenience of passengers, who are free to contract with him for any medical services they may require.”