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800-704-9033 or 904-838-7801

Claudia Oltean: claudia@legalpr.net
800-704-9033 or 904-838-7807

JACKSONVILLE JURY FINDS HCA-MEMORIAL HOSPITAL NEGILIGENT, FRAUDULENT; AWARDS FAMILY $178 MILLION

A lawsuit conducted in Duval County Circuit Court against Memorial Hospital concluded today when the jury awarded Clay Chandler and his family $ 10 Million in punitive damages. This amount is in addition to the $168 million in liability this jury awarded last Friday. In addition to the compensation awarded, the jury found that Memorial Hospital committed medical negligence and fraud in the Chandler case. This verdict is one of the largest seen in Northeast Florida and the charge of fraud is a rare occurrence in a civil case.

Clay Chandler, a former Lieutenant in the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, was a patient at Memorial Hospital between March and May 2007. He was admitted to Memorial Hospital to undergo laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery under the care of Dr. John Deperi. Complications arising from the surgery were severe and went undiagnosed or treated in a timely manner causing Chandler to go into cardiac arrest and septic shock. He ultimately suffered a hypoxic brain injury and was in a coma from March 17, 2007 through approximately April 4, 2007. While Chandler was in ICU in a comatose state, physician orders directed health care personnel to apply two drops to both eyes every 8 hours for three days. Hospital records indicate that only two applications of drops to his eyes were performed. During that period Chandler’s eyes were described as being red with drainage and edema, and he suffered permanent damage to both corneas. While a patient in Memorial’s critical care unit, he also suffered contractures (frozen joints) and bedsores – all due to a lack of basic human care and absolutely below the standard of care for which hospitals are universally responsible.

“This case was about honesty and safety rules and a hospital corporation that ignored them,” said Chandler’s attorney Tom Edwards, of the Jacksonville trial law firm Edwards & Ragatz. “The evidence presented to the jury showed that HCA – Memorial Hospital deceived the public and the Chandlers about their bariatric program that they call the Memorial Bariatric Surgery Center. They obtained a prestigious national certification called the “Bariatric Center of Excellence” but evidence showed they then did not follow the basic patient safety standards that were a part of this program – including letting a surgeon do these very complex surgeries unsupervised when his file showed he was not qualified to do the surgery. Because of the failure to follow basic safety standards, Clay is brain damaged, permanently disabled and needs full time care for the rest of his life.”

“The Chandlers are pleased that this Jury found that HCA/Memorial Hospital should be responsible for Clay’s care and not the tax payers and health insurers of the state of Florida,” said Edward’s law partner Eric Ragatz.

Memorial Hospital of Jacksonville is part of HCA, the nation’s leading provider of healthcare services that includes 164 hospitals and 11 freestanding surgery centers in 20 states and England. HCA revenues in 2010 were more than $30 billion.

Previous Coverage
Motion for Punitive Damages
Original Suit- February 2010

Media Coverage
Jacksonville.com
First Coast News
Action News Jax
News4Jax
WOKV

ADR.com
Clay Today
MSNBC
Tennessean
Wall Street Journal

AAJ News Brief 1/24/12

Fox Business
Nashville Business Journal
Lawyers.com
Jacksonville Business Journal

Lechner has served on the JJA Executive Board for the past two years. This year he received an AV rating from Martindale- Hubbell, the highest rating available by the national attorney peer-review rating service and became a Board Certified Trial attorney, meaning the Florida Bar recognizes him as an expert in his field of law.

The Jacksonville Justice Association (JJA) is a non-profit organization of civil justice attorneys that represent those injured by negligence or malpractice. It was established in 1996 with the goal of providing civil justice attorneys with the tools and resources needed to improve and enhance their trial practices.  Members benefit from quarterly networking meetings, continuing legal education seminars and an extensive deposition and legal document databank.

 Edwards & Ragatz, P.A., is a law firm located inJacksonville,Florida, that represents the injured, victims and consumers in all courts. The firm’s attorneys are experienced in handling all types of personal injury and death cases, as well as complex commercial litigation. The firm’s attorneys are recognized nationally as trial experts. The attorneys serve in prominent positions in local and state trial lawyers’ associations and have testified before the legislature on issues of importance to the justice system.

Best Lawyers

Edwards was the ABOTA- “Jacksonville Trial Lawyer of the Year” in 2009. ABOTA is a selective peer organization of both plaintiff and defense trial lawyers. Edwards has served as President of the Jacksonville Bar Association, President of the Florida Justice Association, President of ABOTA Jacksonville and numerous other organizations- including the area grievance committee which is responsible for prosecuting attorneys accused of ethics violations. He also served on numerous committees appointed by our Supreme Court, including the committee that drafted the Judge’s code of ethics and the committee that writes the jury instructions for trial. 

Best Lawyers compiles its lists of outstanding attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The current, 18th edition of The Best Lawyers in America (2012) is based on more than 3.9 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.

The lawyers being honored as “Lawyers of the Year” have received particularly high ratings in our surveys by earning a high level of respect among their peers for their abilities, professionalism, and integrity.

Steven Naifeh, President of Best Lawyers, says, “We continue to believe – as we have believed for more than 25 years – that recognition by one’s peers is the most meaningful form of praise in the legal profession. We would like to congratulate Thomas S. Edwards, Jr. on being selected as the ‘Jacksonville Best Lawyers Medical Malpractice Law Lawyer of the Year’ for 2012.”

Edwards & Ragatz, P.A., is a law firm located in Jacksonville, Florida, that represents the injured, victims and consumers in all courts. The firm’s attorneys are experienced in handling all types of personal injury and death cases, as well as complex commercial litigation. The firm’s attorneys are recognized nationally as trial experts. The attorneys serve in prominent positions in local and state trial lawyers’ associations and have testified before the legislature on issues of importance to the justice system.

Selection to Best Lawyers is based on an extensive and rigorous peer-review survey, comprising of more than 3.9 million confidential evaluations by fellow top attorneys.

 Edwards is the senior partner of Edwards & Ragatz, P.A. His other accomplishments include being a Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer, rated AV by Martindale Hubbell, awarded the “Spartans at Thermopylae” award for extraordinary work in protecting the court system, and membership in Florida Trend Magazine’s Legal Elite and Florida’s Super Lawyers.

 Best Lawyers is the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. Best Lawyers compiles lists of outstanding attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. In the U.S., Best Lawyers publishes an annual referral guide, The Best Lawyers in America, which includes 41,149 attorneys in 126 practice areas, covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The current, 17th edition of The Best Lawyers in America (2011), is based on more than 3.1 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.

 Martindale-Hubbell has maintained Ratings for lawyers for more than a century. Ratings reflect the confidential opinions of bar members and the judiciary, and attest to the individual lawyer’s legal ability and adherence to accepted professional standards of ethics. Exclusively developed and assigned by the Martindale-Hubbell ® Law Directory, ratings are considered valuable benchmarks intended for use by members of the profession. 

 Albert practices law in the following areas: personal injury, nursing home negligence, medical malpractice, and auto accidents

 Edwards and Ragatz, is a law firm located in Jacksonville, Florida, that represents the injured, victims and consumers in all courts. The firm’s attorneys are experienced in handling all types of personal injury and death cases, as well as complex commercial litigation. They also serve in prominent positions in local and state trial lawyers’ associations and have testified before the legislature on issues of importance to the justice system.

 Martindale-Hubbell is a service mark and a registered trademark and CV, BV and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc., used under license.

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The suggested donation for JALA is $25 at the door. Look for the check-in table in the lobby.

This is just one of several Law Day events planned in Jacksonville and throughout the country in conjunction with 2011 Law Day. This year’s Law Day theme is “The Legacy of John Adams.” As a Resistance leader and patriot, advocate and diplomat, constitutional theorist and political activist, John Adams became our nation’s first lawyer-president in 1797.

For more information or to RSVP to the 2nd Annual Law Day in May Celebration, e-mail Casey Rebman at crr@edwardsragatz.com, visit the event page  or call (904) 399-1609.

2011 Event Vendors
Balloon Construction Company
Bold City Brewery
Catered Cocktails
Rollin Ritas
Riverside Liquors
Rivertown Entertainment
SED Event Rentals
Tom & Bettys

View Photos from 2010 Law Day in May Celebration
Coverage of 2010 Law Day Celebration

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“Both as a lawyer and as a judge, Jeff’s great talent was that he loved people and treated everyone with respect. If he leaves a legacy to our bench, it would be a legacy of patience and respect for the people before the court.

But the law, while important to Jeff, was only a part of his life. Jeff was a unique individual who had many extraordinary talents outside the law. He was an accomplished pianist, a poet, an author, a professor, a movie writer and director of screen plays, a basketball player, a father and coach to his children, and a best friend to his wife and to many, many other people.

Jeff had an extraordinary ability to work hard and then enjoy the many other pursuits of life, while convincing the rest of us to forget about the demands of the moment. He approached everything he did with an almost childlike excitement and exuberance that was infectious and whether it was diving in the Galapagos Islands, fishing off of Guatemala, cooking out in the Bahamas or sitting on his back porch overlooking the marsh, Jeff’s excitement and friendship helped to create moments of respite from the demands of our everyday lives.

The morning following Jeff’s death, I went to Jeff’s office at the courthouse to gather some papers for his family. Sitting atop a stack of legal research and a court file was a book of poetry which was opened to a page that read as follows:

Waiting
Dusk, and all is chill.
I am here still.
Awaiting your coming.
Here wait.
And always will.

Jeff will be missed by his family and his many friends, but I have no doubt that Jeff is waiting on his friends with a smile on his face, a fishing pole in hand and an excitement that is infectious. ‘

The Motion presented the following facts: Clay Chandler entered Memorial Hospital in March of 2007 for bariatric surgery. Clay’s suit claims that following his surgery, he suffered from complications which were ignored and resulted in sepsis, a respiratory arrest, followed by a cardiac arrest and ultimately severe brain damage. In the aftermath, he was held in Memorial Hospital’s Critical Care Unit as a total care patient for weeks.  During his stay in the critical care unit, he suffered severe injuries to his eyes, contractures (frozen joints), and bedsores.  His claim for punitive damages seeks to prove this all happened due to a lack of the most basic human care. The motion presents evidence that Memorial Hospital nurses failed to perform basic managerial review of Clay’s medical records which should have caught and corrected these problems. 

Recently (December 14, 2010), Clay’s attorneys took the deposition of Memorial Hospital’s wound care nurse. The wound care nurse testified that in the year following Clay Chandler’s problems, she resigned from Memorial Hospital in protest over Memorial Hospital’s administration and management refusing to address serious care problems that she had warned them about repeatedly since 2002. As described in her two depositions, the nurse complained to management at least every couple of weeks.  Her testimony has been confirmed by other nurses.

The evidence filed by Clay’s attorneys shows that in 2008 and early 2010 Memorial Hospital was cited by AHCA for deficiencies in its care of patients and particularly for numerous failures relating to nursing and wound care. 

Memorial Hospital’s administration announced in early 2010 that, after reviewing its care rendered to Mr. Chandler, it found all care and treatment of him to have been reasonable and within the standard of care.  These statements were made to the press following publicity about the failures of care Mr. Chandler suffered while a patient at Memorial Hospital.

The motion for punitive damages was filed today, January 18, 2011, in court and attorney Tom Edwards expects similar motions to be filed in 5 other Memorial cases in the near future.

“The thing that is most shocking to me, is these problems all are problems related to basic human care. It is as simple as adding drops to eyes, as simple as turning a patient every 2 hours…as simple as taking the time to move joints in range of motion or even explaining to a family member how to do it” said Edwards. No specific amount of damages is being asked, but will be decided once the case is in front of a jury.

• First Coast News
• News4Jax
• Fox 30
• Florida Times Union
• WJCT

View coverage from the original press conference in Feb 2010, filing 6 suits.

Edwards & Ragatz YouTube Channel

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Tom Edwards with JALA President Hugh Cotney

Jacksonville Area Legal Aid presented Edwards & Ragatz with it’s prestigious President’s Award at the annual Equal Justice Event Nov. 30 at the River Club.

“All of us greatly appreciate all of  your efforts to raise funds for JALA and bring awareness to our work by hosting the Law Day in May barbeque benefitting JALA,” said Christa Figgins, JALA development director, in an e-mail notifying the firm of the award.

 Partner,  Thomas S. Edwards Jr. accepted the award for the firm. Edwards and Ragatz, along with 12 other firms, also received the 100% Firm Participation Award.