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Sidmak Laboratories Litigation Our client started taking a generic drug called procainamide for a heart rhythm problem. Pretty soon after that the toes on one of his feet started turning blue. The problem was a lack of blood flow to the foot due to blockage of the blood vessels. Finally his doctors had to amputate his leg. Pretty soon after that, the toes on his other foot started turning blue. The doctors were about to amputate that leg too when they called in a vascular specialist, Dr. Mitchell Goldman. Dr. Goldman knew that procainamide had a little known side effect of causing thrombosis – the clotting of the blood – in some patients. Dr. Goldman said “Why don’t we just discontinue the procainamide and see what happens?” He asked our client, who was in a tremendous amount of pain, if he thought he could make it through the night. Our client said he would give it a try. The next morning his pain was no worse and the next afternoon it was better. The next day he left the hospital and he is still walking on his remaining leg to this day. The culprit: procainamide, or more accurately, the package insert, the information about the drug that the manufacturer puts in each bottle sold. The insert did not mention the fact that procainamide can cause thrombosis, even though the drug industry was well aware of the reports that it did. The jury found in favor of our client for $680,000. Unfortunately, our verdict did not prompt the drug industry to add the warning about thrombosis to the package insert. It is still not on the package insert to this day. Woods v. Humana of Tennessee, Inc. Georgie Woods and her husband Bill Woods of Dandridge, Tennessee, were two of my favorite clients. Mrs. Woods was struck by arthritis in middle age. By the time she was 45 she was walking on crutches. But with artificial knees and hips - 8 surgeries in 12 years - she was able to walk again. And she kept walking for 13 years after the last surgery. But then one day she was in a car wreck and she broke a leg and an arm. She was taken to Morristown Humana Hospital in Morristown, Tennessee. Her doctor set the bones and put on casts and wrote orders that she be gotten up in a chair when she was ready. In two days she was ready. Two hospital workers got her up in a chair. The same two workers put her back in bed later. It happened that way four times in a row. Two workers working together. The next day two workers again got her up in the chair. While she was sitting up, she and Bill talked about the fact that she was going to go home the next day. Then it came time for her to go back to bed, and something unusual happened. The physical therapy tech who came to help her came by himself. He did not have to have a license and he had not been to school to learn how to work in the hospital. But he decided that he would put Mrs. Woods back in bed by himself. Mrs. Woods asked him if he would please go and get some help, but he did not. He tried to move her on his own. And to make matters worse, he did not use a safety belt. A safety belt goes on in a few seconds and gives you a handle on the patient. Nobody knows exactly how it happened, but in the move from the chair to the bed, Mrs. Woods’ other leg was broken. Everybody in the room heard the pop when it broke. The arm and leg that Mrs. Woods broke in the car accident mended themselves. But the broken leg that she got in the hospital could not be fixed. It was an especially bad place to get a break – right next to the component of the artificial knee. The knee was unstable and would not support her. And she never walked again for the rest of her life. The Hospital tried to say that the accident had been the doctor’s fault. They argued that the doctor should have told the Humana staff to always use two people to get Mrs. Woods in and out of bed. But we were able to demonstrate that the doctor’s order – “up in chair” – was the customary form for orders of that kind and that doctors don’t tell physical therapy techs how to handle patients any more than they tell x-ray techs how to take x-rays. And that there wasn’t a safety belt in the entire hospital. The trial took all week and the jury came in on Saturday to render the verdict: $375,000 in favor of Mr. and Mrs. Woods. Hall v. Kroger Company (Pharmacy)  We call this the bad handwriting case. The doctor was trying to write a prescription for 25 mg, but his handwriting was so bad the pharmacist thought it said 75 mg. This mistake almost killed our client, Rick Hall, of Oak Ridge. The jury found the doctor and the pharmacy equally at fault, because the pharmacy should have realized it was a triple overdose, and should not have given him the prescription. After a five day trial the jury found for our client, Rick Hall, in the amount of $375,000. Teton Transportation v. Forward Air Corporation
[His] testimony is sort of all over the board here. I hesitate to say that he’s misrepresented himself to the Court or say that he’s not a credible witness because I think he’s somewhat arrogant about his position in the company and the company’s position. I think that probably accounts more for the discrepancies in the testimony than to just outright intent to deceive. The judgment was for $17,127.58 – every penny that we sued for. After the decision, Forward Air filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment. At the earlier hearing, the Judge had pretty much laid it on the line, but at this hearing he left no doubt: At the earlier hearing, I said I wasn’t so sure whether it was a matter his misrepresenting himself or the fact that he was arrogant. The more I think about it, the more it looks to me that he was simply an out and out liar. Suffice it to say that the Judge let the decision stand intact and we collected every penny. |
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We include this case because of the straightforward way that the Judge nailed the other side in his opinion. We represented the plaintiff, Teton Transportation, a Knoxville based trucking company, which has grown from one truck in 1992 to over 200 today. The defendant was Forward Air Corporation, a big transportation company that is traded on NASDAQ. Forward Air refused to pay for a dozen loads of freight that Teton Transportation had hauled for it, forcing Teton Transportation to file suit to collect. Forward Air brought in witnesses from all over the country to defend the case, including a Senior Vice-President from Columbus, Ohio, who testified to kind of a cock and bull story. To put it mildly, the Judge didn’t buy the story. Here is what the Judge said about him: