High million dollar recovery for failure to diagnose kidney disease

There are many medical conditions that are “silent” in the sense that they do not typically produce early signs or symptoms. Once such illness is kidney disease. Often the patient can have early or moderate stage kidney disease but have not outward symptoms. Instead, the first and most important clues of kidney disease often show up in a patient’s lab work. Of course, when your doctor orders lab work, it is important that they pay attention to the results of those tests. We recently settled a case for a gentleman whose lab work showed clear signs of ongoing kidney disease but the doctor who ordered the lab tests apparently never looked at the results! As a consequence, this patient’s kidney disease progressively got worse over the next year to the point that he went into complete kidney failure and had to go on long-term dialysis.

We filed a medical malpractice suit against the doctor based on his failure to take note of the abnormal test results that he himself had ordered. Frankly, there was no excuse for the physician’s oversight. Thus, there was not much debate in the case about the negligence of the doctor; instead, most of the dispute dealt with what damages the patient had suffered as a result of the mistake. Through the use of several expert witnesses, we were able to establish that our client’s undetected kidney disease shortened his life expectancy; required him to go on dialysis; and also caused him to develop a rare secondary illness known as critical illness myopathy, a muscular condition that impacts the strength and function of the arms and legs. For our client, the impact of the illness was such that he permanently required the use of a walker; was unable to drive; and required assistance with basic daily chores such as cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. With the help of a separate expert, we developed an estimate of future costs for healthcare and home assistance throughout the balance of our client’s life.

We were eventually able to obtain a high seven figure recovery for the client which will provide him with much needed economic security throughout the rest of his life.