Brain Tumor Sufferer Awarded $11 Million in Philadelphia Malpractice Suit


Posted on Aug 20, 2008

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, brain tumor victim Yanira Montanez was awarded $11.2 million by a Philadelphia jury after hearing her medical malpractice case. The verdict included $5.9 million for future medical expenses that will be paid as Montanez needs funds.

The suit was filed against two ER doctors, Episcopal Hospital, Northeastern Hospital, and the Temple University Health System. All were found to be negligent in their treatment of the 20-year-old patient. The award was the third this year in Philadelphia to reach over $10 million in a single suit.

What went wrong? When Montanez visited two different hospital ERs with complaints of headaches, numbness, nausea, vomiting, and a number of other symptoms that suggested a brain tumor, neither ER doctor ordered a CT scan to check for brain tumors. The scans cost the hospitals thousands of dollars, although hospitals are only reimbursed $135 for the procedure. The tumor was not discovered until days later, when her disease caused her to pass out and fall down a flight of stairs.

Three years later, Montanez is wheelchair-bound, paralyzed, blind, and brain-damaged. She needs ongoing 24-hour care and extensive financial support, for both herself and her 4-year old daughter who was born just months before Montanez fell ill. Before the tumor, she was a young, healthy wife and mother.

"ER doctors have to listen and take the time to appreciate symptoms from patients to treat them appropriately," her attorney said. "In this case, for whatever reasons, they didn't do so and missed what were obviously neurologic problems that should have led them to order a CT scan."

On the other hand, the defense argued that Montanez's cancer was very rare and that her symptoms mimicked those of a pregnant woman.

"This is a needle-in-the-haystack diagnosis," Temple Health's associate counsel said. "We feel badly that she has suffered all of these injuries from her very rare cancer. He added that the ER doctors "treated her appropriately" and "none of her injuries are related to any failure of theirs."

The jury disagreed.

Montanez's attorney also discussed ethnic and economic discrimination during the case, stating that since the patient was on Medicaid, she was not given the treatment that would be allowed anyone carrying a Blue Cross Blue Shield card in their wallet.

The other two cases with over $10 million dollar verdicts this year involved breast cancer and liposuction. In February, a jury returned a $12 million verdict in a case a woman with breast cancer, and in May, a jury issued a $20.5 million verdict against a plastic surgeon in a case involving the death of an 18-year-old college student following a liposuction procedure, according to Jury Verdict Research.

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