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The following is a list of our most recent events. Click on the links for more information or contact us at events@raynesmccarty.com
01/28/2009
Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh Make "Report 100" List for Third Year in a Row
The Pennsylvania Report, a premier news source on Pennsylvania politics, for the third year in a row listed Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh among the Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs....Details >>
12/01/2008
Pennsylvania Superior Court Rules in Favor of Raynes McCarty Client
Mother, who during her pregnancy, was misled by doctors as to the health of her baby, may hold the doctors responsible for the distress caused her by not being emotionally prepared for a child with severe disabilities....Details >>
11/12/2008
Martin Brigham selected as one of the World’s Leading Product Liability Lawyers.
Marty was nominated by a survey of other prominent attorneys to appear in the 2009 Guide to the World’s Leading Product Liability Lawyers....Details >>
10/29/2008
Raynes McCarty paralegal Donna M. Colarulo, R.P. serving on the Board of Advisors for Widener University’s paralegal training program.
As a member of the Board of Advisors Legal Education Program, Ms. Colarulo participates in panel discussions regarding decisions affecting the curriculum for Widener University’s paralegal training programs....Details >>
10/20/2008
Five Raynes McCarty lawyers recognized by Best Lawyers in America
Best Lawyers in America selected Marty Brigham, Roy DeCaro, Harold Goodman, Jerry McHugh and Stephen Raynes for inclusion in its 2009 edition....Details >>
10/20/2008
Jerry McHugh featured speaker at Pennsylvania Association for Justice Masters Series
Raynes McCarty lawyer Gerald A. McHugh, Jr. was the featured speaker at a PaAJ Masters Series continuing legal education program titled Perspectives on the Critical Components of a Trial....Details >>
10/20/2008
Tim Lawn featured speaker at Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association’s Luncheon Lecture Series
Raynes McCarty lawyer Timothy Lawn will speak at the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association’s November 3, 2008 continuing legal education program titled Proving Difficult Medical Malpractice Issues. ...Details >>
09/01/2008
Philadelphia jury awards Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for eye injuries caused by defective plastic flying disc.
After a two-day trial, a jury awarded the Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for a laceration to his eye caused by a shard of plastic that splintered from a broken flying disc....Details >>
09/01/2008
Philadelphia jury awards Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for eye injuries caused by defective plastic flying disc.
After a two-day trial, a jury awarded the Raynes McCarty client $950,000.00 for a laceration to his eye caused by a shard of plastic that splintered from a broken flying disc....Details >>
04/16/2008
Gerald McHugh and wife Maureen Tate were honored by Friends for Effective Education (FFEE) at the Tribute Medallion Award Dinner on April 16, 2008
The Award recognizes McHugh and Tate’s lifelong dedication to community service, while at the same time raising funds for the St. Francis de Sales Elementary School, in keeping with FFEE’s purpose of providing monetary support to schools that exhibit educational leadership....Details >>
03/31/2008
Regina M. Foley appointed to Philadelphia Bar Association Board of Governors.
Regina M. Foley was appointed to serve a one year term on the Board of Governors of the Philadelphia Bar Association by Chancellor Michael A. Pratt....Details >>
03/21/2008
Regina M. Foley spoke April 9, 2008 at Continuing Legal Education seminar.
Ms. Foley updated plaintiffs’ and defense attorneys alike on recent developments in products liability law at The Dispute Resolution Institute’s Personal Injury Potpourri....Details >>
03/20/2008
Jenimae Almquist named co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Advancing Civics Education (A.C.E.) program.
Raynes McCarty’s Jenimae Almquist and co-chair Barbara Potts, are leading members of the Bar Association in a program to provide supplemental civics education to Philadelphia area public school students starting in the Fall of 2008.
...Details >>
02/08/2008
Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh Make Pennsylvania Report 100
The Pennsylvania Report, a premier news source on Pennsylvania politics, for the second year in a row listed Jim Mundy and Gerald McHugh among the Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs....Details >>
01/29/2008
Jenimae Almquist serves on Philadelphia Bar Association panel on work-family balance.
Raynes McCarty attorney Jenimae Almquist spoke at the program titled “How to Have It All - The Career and the Family,” organized by the bar association’s Women in the Profession Committee.
...Details >>
01/24/2008
Roy DeCaro Speaks at Philadelphia Trial Lawyers
On January 24, 2008, Roy DeCaro spoke to fellow trial attorneys about the steps he took to help secure the $5,000,000.00 verdict his client received in a recent product liability trial. ...Details >>
11/28/2007
Jury Awards $2.9 Mil. for Death Stemming from Blood Clot
A Philadelphia jury awarded $2.9 million to the wife of a bariatric surgery patient who died from a blood clot that traveled to his lungs after his post-surgical leg blood clots allegedly went untreated for 10 days. The verdict was in the Legal Intelligencer’s list of the Top 50 Verdicts and Settlements of 2007....Details >>
11/06/2007
$5 Million Verdict Upheld in Phila. Infant Tylenol Case
A Philadelphia judge has upheld a $5 million verdict rendered over a 1-year-old’s death allegedly due to liver failure from an overdose of Infants’ Tylenol....Details >>
09/12/2007
Raynes McCarty Distinguished Lecture in Health Law scheduled for October 9, 2007
Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin, visiting professor of Law at the University of Chicago, will be the featured speaker at the Raynes McCarty Distinguished Lecture in Health Law which is jointly sponsored with Widener University School of Law.
...Details >>
09/10/2007
Best Lawyers ranks Raynes McCarty #1 In Philadelphia Personal Injury Litigation Firms
Best Lawyers in America is the oldest and most widely respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. It has announced its results for 2008, ranking Raynes McCarty as the Number 0ne personal injury litigation firm in Philadelphia, PA. Recognized for individual inclusion in Best Lawyers were: Marty Brigham, Roy DeCaro, Harold Goodman, Jerry McHugh and Stephen Raynes....Details >>
09/09/2007
Marty Brigham presenting at Visual Legal Advocacy Roundtable at Penn Law on October 19, 2007
Marty Brigham will be a featured speaker at the "Visual Legal Advocacy Roundtable" being held at Penn Law School. Marty will discuss his pioneering work on videotape settlement presentations....Details >>
05/04/2007
Federal Judge Lauds Firm’s Donation to Support Center for Child Advocates
Describing it as “an example of our Bar at its best”, United States District Court Judge, Stewart Dalzell commends Raynes McCarty’s $10,000.00 donation to the Support Center for Child Advocates....Details >>
05/01/2007
Marty Brigham honored in world-wide survey
The Legal Media Group ("LMG"), based in London, England, has just announced the selection of Raynes McCarty's Marty Brigham for inclusion in its "2007 Guide to the World's Leading Product Liability Lawyers." ...Details >>
03/15/2007
3rd Circuit Affirms $7.4 Mil. Verdict in Suit Against VA
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a $7.4 million verdict obtained by Raynes McCarty's Jerry McHugh and Regina Foley against the Department of Veterans Affairs stemming from its decision to expel a Delaware County man who suffered from “rage disorder” and just one day later murdered two of his children and two of their friends.
...Details >>
02/16/2007
Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs
Two Raynes McCarty Attorneys Identified as Top 100 Most Influential People in State Public Affairs...Details >>
02/07/2007
$1,750,000.00 Civil Rights Settlement for Widow of Undercover Officer Killed by Fellow Policeman
On February 2, 2007, Judge Stewart Dalzell approved a settlement by the City of Reading in a civil rights law suit filed by Gerald McHugh on behalf of the widow of a Reading police officer. The undercover officer - Michael H. Wise, II - died on June 4, 2004, when he was struck by a bullet fired by a fellow member of the Reading police force. ...Details >>
01/08/2007
Roy DeCaro and Stephen Raynes selected to be among 500 Best Plaintiff Lawyers
Roy DeCaro and Stephen Raynes were named as being among the 500 Best Plaintiff Lawyers in the United States by the Publication "Lawdragon."...Details >>
12/01/2006
$5 million verdict for child who died from liver damage caused by Tylenol
Roy DeCaro was the lead trial attorney for the family of a one year old child who died from liver failure caused by Tylenol. Mr. DeCaro convinced the jury that the drug company provided misleading and inadequate warnings about the concentration and toxicity of Infants’ Tylenol. The jury awarded the family $5,000,000.00 for the loss of their child. Recently, the trial court rejected the drug company’s request to overturn the verdict. ...Details >>
10/17/2006
Martin Brigham Honored
Martin Brigham received a lifetime achievement award from the Philadelphia area Occupational Safety and Health Project...Details >>
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Jury Awards $2.45 Million as Solace, $500,000 for Suffering in Child's Death
‘Solatium’ Awards May Be Reduced Due to Maryland’s Damage Cap
By Shannon Duffy
U.S. Courthouse Correspondent
A Pennsylvania Couple was awarded more than $2.9 million on Wednesday by a federal
court jury in Baltimore in their suit against two doctors and a hospital alleging
wrongful death of their 8-year-old son.
But the award is almost sure to be reduced to $1.25 million due to Maryland’s
caps on damages, according to plaintiffs’ attorney A. Roy DeCaro of Raynes
McCarty Binder Ross & Mundy.
DeCaro represented William and Michelle Schmidt of Malvern, Pa., whose son,
Evan, was born with Dandy Walker syndrome, a condition that can cause a build-up
of fluid in the brain known as hydrocephalus.
As a child, Evan had a shunt installed that drained the fluid to the abdominal
area, and he developed normally.
But in July 1995, when the Schmidts were on vacation in Ocean City, Md., Evan
began complaining of headaches and was vomiting. His parents rushed him to the
Peninsula Regional Medical Center after a closer hospital said it had no neurosurgeon
on staff.
When they arrived at PRMC’s emergency room, Evan was alert and awake.
But after waiting more than three hours to see a neurosurgeon, his vital signs
were deteriorating.
As soon as the two doctors arrived—neurosurgeon Julius D. Zant and pediatrician
Scott Hamilton—and the shunt was “tapped,” relieving the pressure,
Evan’s condition improved.
But the dispute in the lawsuit focused on what happened next.
The Schmidts claimed that Zant told them he did not feel comfortable performing
the operation to remove the blockage of the shunt and advised them to take Evan
to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.
Although Zant had performed such operations before—a procedure known as
a shunt “revision”—the Schmidts said he insisted that he could
not operate on their son because he was not a pediatric neurosurgeon and because
PRMC had no pediatric intensive care unit.
The Schmidts said they were soon told that a helicopter could take their son
to CHOP. But the promise of a swift trip soon proved false, they said, as another
three-hour wait ensued.
Attorney DeCaro told the jury that Hamilton should have objected, insisted
on going or at least told Zant that he had been ousted from the flight.
During the flight, Evan’s condition worsened considerably, and by the
time he arrived at CHOP, it was impossible to save him. He died on the operating
table at about 2 a.m.
Two doctors testified as expert witnesses for the plaintiffs and opined that
both Zant and Hamilton had committed malpractice.
Zant, they said, should have performed the shunt revision himself or at least
clearly advised the Schmidts that their best chances for Evan’s survival
would be to have the procedure done in Maryland.
Once he decided not to do the operation himself, they said, Zant should have
taken steps to ensure that the pressure in Evan’s cranium did not reach
dangerous levels before he reached Philadelphia. Among the ways to do so, they
said, would have been to install a butterfly drainage system into the shunt
reservoir or to externalize the shunt tubage for continuous drainage.
The hospital was also negligent, the experts said, because it violated its
own patient transfer protocols by allowing an unreasonable amount of time to
pass before the helicopter arrived.
The Schmidts also sued the helicopter operators—Medstar Medevac, Medlantic
Healthcare Group Inc. and Washington Hospital Center—alleging that the late
arrival played a role in their son’s demise.
But at trial, Medlantic’s lawyers, Paul A. Bechtel Jr. And Robert W.
Hoffman of Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, successful argued
for dismissal of their clients as soon as the plaintiffs had rested their case.
Child’s Death
In its verdict, the jury awarded Evan Schmidt $500,000 for the pain and suffering
he endured in the final hours of his life.
The jury then awarded $1.3 million in “solatium” damages to Michelle
Schmidt and $1.15 million on the same claim to William Schmidt for a total award
of $2.95 million.
Under Maryland law, damages in a wrongful death action are not based on lost
wages, but instead are purely solatium, defined as an award of money intended
to serve as solace for hurt feelings. Finding its origin in Scots law, “solatium”
described awards to those who suffer personal injury, such as loss of limbs,
as well as compensation to surviving relatives for the non-financial loss caused
by the premature death of a relative.
DeCaro said Maryland law also imposes caps on damages and that the verdict
for the Schmidts is sure to be molded. Although the $500,000 award to Evan mirrors
the cap, the awards to each of his parents must be reduced to a total award
of $750,000, he said.
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