I began my own practice in 1980 with a donated typewriter, a room in a friend’s office and my wife as my secretary. Past experience suggested that Spanish-speaking patients were often getting poor medical care, both from street corner medical clinics and large medical centers. I decided to focus on families harmed by negligent medical care.
Over the next 40+ years, we’ve continued to focus on victims of poor medical care. Our staff expanded to include a full-time, in-house physician, four-plus lawyers and wonderful secretaries and paralegals. Many of us have been together for more than 30 years.
We’ve handled hundreds of cases with verdicts and settlements totaling over $1.5 billion. We have always advanced litigation costs, often in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We don’t get repaid unless we’re successful. We’ve never asked a client to advance any case costs, and in some situations, we have waived or reduced our costs. We’ve handled many pro bono cases also.
The majority of our cases involve injuries to children from negligent medical care. Often the parents aren’t told by medical providers what happened or why. Sometimes the medical records don’t reveal the real cause. We have to go digging. The following case has always stuck with me and proved the value of digging.
A family approached us to find out why their 3-year-old being treated at a children’s hospital could not walk or stand. The hospital diagnosis was a muscle disorder. We obtained the birth records and early imaging and learned the real cause. We met with the heads of neurology at the hospital and showed them the images and records. They were stunned. The child had a severely injured spinal cord. It turned out the baby had been born as a footling breech (feet first). The head had been trapped in the cervix. The physician had pulled on the body with the head stuck and injured the cervical portion of the spinal cord.
The jury awarded a verdict of $120 million in future value. We’ve stayed in touch with the client for the past 25 years and followed her through college and beyond. She walks with assistance and is doing well.
California medical malpractice cases have been severely restricted since 1976. The insurance industry pushed through legislation to limit recovery for pain and suffering to $250,000, regardless of the severity of the injury or lifelong suffering the victim will have to endure. During the past 40+ years, my colleagues and I have supported efforts to reform this highly biased, unfair law. Only last year was this law amended to somewhat expand the rights of victims. However, it’s still the law that if a doctor runs a red light and injures someone, he must bear full responsibility. If he runs a medical red light, he gets a slap on the wrist.
