5.3 Million Dollar Medical Malpractice Verdict: Importance of Life Care Plans | Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp

VA medical malpractice lawyers, life planA judge awarded $5.3 million to the family of a woman who lost her life after suffering a brain aneurysm following numerous visits to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.  The attorney who represented the family of the victim presented a life care planner to the court who estimated the annual cost for the care of the victim’s son at $84,760. The victtim’s son was born in 1990 with severe mental retardation, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, scoliosis, autism and optic nerve damage,according to the post-gazette.com.

The victim’s son has been living at Holy Angels, a residential care facility, at no cost because Medicaid pays for part of the expenses. This caused the defendant, the federal government, to argue it already paid the family through the Medicaid funds used to cover the expenses invoiced by Holy Angels.

Nevertheless, the judge used the figures provided by the life care planner and ordered the government to pay the family a large portion of the $5.3 million total ($3.7 million to be exact).  This case is a prime example of the importance of a life care plan. Usually, a life-care plan is presented in a case where the injured party needs medical attention. However, this case illustrates that a life care plan can be used to show the value of lost services because the mother in this case can no longer care for her son.  Our firm published an in-depth article on what exactly a life care plan is and what your lawyer should do to obtain an accurate life-care plan.

 

 

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