Verdicts & Settlements

After a nine-week trial in Dallas, Texas, Marynell Maloney Law Firm, PLLC, obtained a $7.37 million verdict on behalf of our clients in a medical malpractice case. The claims centered around the systemic failure at Methodist Charlton Medical Center to have systems in place to ensure recognition and treatment of blood clots in hospitalized patients. As a result of the systemic hospital failure, Lynda Hernandez, a beautiful, talented, smart 29-year-old doctor, died from a horrifically painful and completely preventable massive pulmonary embolus. Dr. Hernandez was survived by her two young sons, her husband and her mother and father. Even though the hospital’s own educational materials recognized venous thromboembolism (VTE) and its deadly potential outcome — pulmonary embolus is the most common preventable cause of hospital death — Methodist Charlton Medical Center failed to implement an adequate VTE prevention program, and, as a result, the physicians involved failed to recognize and diagnose Dr. Hernandez’ pulmonary embolism. We took this case to trial to get accountability for Dr. Hernandez, help provide for her young children, and bring attention to this very preventable, very dangerous health risk.

We were able to secure a substantial settlement for a young man whose life was forever altered by a spine surgery that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Our client was able to purchase a home with all of the accommodations needed so that he could live an independent life.

In this very tragic case, our client presented multiple times to various emergency rooms with excruciating pain. Though he had no history of drug abuse or drug-seeking behavior, he was repeatedly turned away without appropriate medical screening examinations to determine whether or not he was actually suffering from an emergency medical condition. Tragically, our client had been suffering from an infection, which would have been detectable and treatable with the appropriate exam. Because he was instead sent home several times, the infection progressed to the point that he became a quadriplegic — paralyzed from the neck down — requiring round-the-clock care and permanently impairing his quality of life. This settlement enabled our client to purchase quality health insurance to provide for his healthcare needs for the rest of his life, and to ensure that his basic needs were met (i.e., rent, food and monthly bills paid).

Notably, in this case, our client’s health insurance entity tried to claim a larger portion of the settlement than they were entitled to claim. (Remember, in medical malpractice cases, when your insurance company pays for healthcare required as a result of the negligence, the insurance company can claim a right to be reimbursed out of any verdict or settlement. Therefore, it is critical to retain lawyers who know how to properly put subrogation entities on notice of these potential claims, and how to negotiate the liens down to appropriate and fair levels at the conclusion of the case.) Here, at no additional cost to our client (and for no benefit directly to us except helping our client), we successfully sued our client’s insurance company to make sure it only recovered what it was legally entitled to — and no more.

Our clients’ daughter suffered a life-altering injury shortly after birth. This settlement has provided the resources for her parents to provide her with therapies, medical devices and resources to allow her to live a healthy and joyful life. In this case, we were also able to change hospital policy to ensure this injury never happens to another child at that hospital.

In this tragic case, the settlement we obtained allowed our client to care for her brain-injured son in her home for the rest of his life. He never should have been injured in the first place – but the combination of a medical device defect and physician negligence – resulted in a catastrophic brain injury when he was only in his teens.

This verdict was included in the top 100 Medical Malpractice Verdicts in the United States. In 2019, we took a pain medicine doctor to trial after he administered unnecessary pain injections to Tommy, our young police officer client. The pain injections administered by Dr. Tisdall caused our client to develop a serious infection that permanently disabled him from doing the police work that he loved. Although our client (who had two young daughters to support) was able to turn to teaching as a career, he took a drastic pay cut because he was required to change careers. He also suffers from daily permanent pain and can no longer engage in all of the physical activities that he loved.

A hospital deviated from safe practices and its own policies and procedures in how it used medical equipment in the treatment of a woman’s illness, which resulted in permanent and devastating injuries to her. This settlement provided comfort and security in the face of terrifying uncertainty about her future.

In this case, a hospital failed to timely administer tPA (a “clot buster” medication) to a young patient presenting to the hospital with clear signs and symptoms of stroke. Had tPA been administered, he likely would have recovered with no permanent injuries. Instead, our client is permanently disabled with brain damage and is unable to return to his job and support his family. The settlement allowed our client to keep his home and provide for his family, while getting the rehabilitative services he needs to get back on track to being as “whole” as possible.

Our client was provided with an overdose of narcotic pain medications in the hospital following a surgery which caused him to suffer an anoxic brain injury. This settlement helped his family buy a home that met his needs, providing comfort during a profoundly difficult time.

This case involved the failure of a hospital and physician to diagnose an infant with bacterial meningitis. As a result of this failure to diagnose, the baby was sent home from the hospital and developed permanent and devastating brain injuries. The settlement allowed the child’s family to purchase a home with special equipment for the baby, where the family could live and where he could receive 24/7 care for the rest of his life.

When our client’s son suffered a birth related injury, we brought suit to help her provide for the therapies he’d need to regain function. Today, her son is thriving.

After our client suffered severe injuries that resulted in his death following a gastric bypass surgery, we sued to get the clinic to change its ways. We were successful in getting both policy changes and a settlement that lessened the enormous financial stressors on his wife and children following his untimely death.

In this case, our instincts and investigative skills led us to discover that medical records had been altered by our client’s healthcare providers after the fact. After years of litigation, we were able to secure compensation and acknowledgement for our clients.

After protracted litigation and a lengthy trial, we obtained a verdict for our young client after a faulty hospital bed caused him to develop sacral ulcers (bedsores) so severe that his tailbone became infected and had to be removed. These injuries caused him severe, unrelenting pain and disrupted his career plans. Tragically, the company, Kinetic Concepts Inc. (KCI) had received many complaints about this hospital bed, which allowed patients to slip through the cushions and rest directly on metal, causing severe injuries.

This case was covered by several news outlets:

• Jury: KCI Must Pay $1 Million
• KCI Ordered to Pay $1 Million to Patient
• Patient Wins $1 Million for Grisly Bedsores from Faulty Bed

Cases against the government are capped and difficult. That did not stop us from bringing this critical case against the San Antonio State Hospital for egregious violations of our client’s rights that resulted in his death at the age of 27.

• State documents show how SA State Hospital patient died