Twelve-year-old San Diego resident Steven Olsen is blind and brain damaged because, as a jury ruled, he was a victim of medical negligence when he was two years old. He fell on a stick in the woods while hiking. Under the family's managed care plan, the hospital pumped Steven up with steroids and sent him away with a growing brain abscess, although his parents had asked for a CAT scan because they knew Steven was not well. The next day, Steven Olsen came back to the hospital comatose. At trial, medical experts testified that had he received the $800 CAT scan, which would have detected a growing brain mass, he would have his sight and be perfectly healthy today.
The jury awarded $7.1 million in "non-economic" damages for Steven's avoidable life of darkness and suffering. However, the jury was not told of the two decade old restriction on non-economic damages in the state - California's Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act. The judge was forced to reduce the amount to $250,000. The jurors only found out that their verdict had been reduced by reading about it in the newspaper...(more)
Read more medical malpractice stories.
