Articles Posted in Jury Trials

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Ms. Doe, 70, suffered from atrial fibrillation and had two mechanical heart valves. She was prescribed Coumadin to prevent a stroke. When Dr. Roe, her treating cardiologist, recommended elective replacement of her pacemaker battery, the Coumadin was stopped five days before the procedure. It was then restarted after the surgery.

Dr. Roe placed Ms. Doe on Bactrim to prevent infection and ordered an INR test, which is the international normalized ratio blood test. The test showed a result of 3.2 – more than double the previous INR taken before the procedure. Dr. Roe allegedly ordered a repeat INR for one month later. The INR blood test tells a patient how long it takes for blood to clot. A test called prothrombin time (PT) measures how quickly the blood clots in the body.

Before the repeat INR test, Ms. Doe was taken to the hospital ER suffering from anemia. Her INR at the time was 22.8. While at the hospital, Ms. Doe coded several times and died the next day.
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Lenville Hall Sr. underwent a laparoscopic right hemicolectomy at Southside Regional Medical Center. For the next eight days, urine accumulated in Hall’s abdomen, which required surgery to repair a severed right ureter.

The surgery was unsuccessful. Hall experienced multiple complications, which included infections and loss of kidney function. He now requires lifetime dialysis.

He sued the surgeon who did the first surgery, alleging that he negligently cut Hall’s ureter and chose not to timely recognize this during the post-operative period.
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In this medical malpractice lawsuit, the plaintiff claimed the judge’s questioning of “Juror 3” coerced a verdict. The judge gave a Prim instruction (Illinois Pattern Jury Instruction, Civil No. 1.05; People v. Prim, 53 Ill.2d 62 (1973)) on the second day of deliberation after receiving two jury notes.

The first note said: “We are gridlocked at 11 to 1. We have tried persuading said person, but there is a refusal to listen to the law.”

In the second note, Juror 3 asked: “If I’ve reached my decision and the 11 won’t rest it, yet continue to try and sway my decision, at what point can this end?” A day later, when Juror 3 said that she was “experiencing elevated blood sugars and chest pain due to the stress of this deliberation,” the judge followed up with the second Prim instruction (I.P.I. Civil No. 1.06).
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