“A Brooklyn, N.Y., judge [last month] dismissed a $112 million medical malpractice verdict — the third-largest in the state’s history — saying a local hospital could not be blamed for an aneurysm that left a man a quadriplegic. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Melvin S. Barasch said that although the case was ‘one of the saddest’ he had heard, the jury had no rational basis for its verdict.” David Fellin’s lawyer had played the jury a “day-in-the-life” video of his disabled client “in a nursing home, where he needs constant care. He also told the jury about Fellin’s mother, whose life, according to Barasch, now revolves around visiting and caring for her son. The judge said the film ‘brought tears to everyone’s eyes.'” However, the judge said, that’s no substitute for showing that defendant Long Island College Hospital had negligently caused Fellin’s injuries, which he said the plaintiff’s side hadn’t shown. (Tom Perrotta, New York Law Journal, Jul. 15).

Filed under: hospitals, Long Island, medical, nursing home