Case Results

It can be hard to know what to expect from a personal injury claim, and while we can never guarantee a particular outcome, it can be helpful to read about the details of our recent cases and the results we were able to secure for our clients. Get a better idea of what your claim could be worth by reading these case results.

Malpractice Award Against Tyrone Hospital And Dr. Pazmino

Jacob Mayhue, now 10, suffers from cerebral palsy. A jury ruled that Dr. Roy R. Pazmino and the hospital were negligent because medical officials didn’t act quickly enough to deliver the boy by Caesarean section after he stopped breathing while his mother was in labor. The jury found Dr. Pazmino 80 percent responsible for the boy’s condition, and the hospital 20 percent responsible. But under Pennsylvania law, either party could end up paying whatever part of the verdict the other party cannot.

Tyrone Hospital attorneys have said that could leave the hospital on the hook for far more than the hospital’s insurance coverage and force the hospital into bankruptcy.

The Mayhues’ attorneys yesterday asked the judge to give the doctor and hospital 10 days to submit financial affidavits. Both sides would then spend more than two months gathering evidence and arguing their positions before the judge makes a final decision.

$4 million

Existing Back Injury Was Worsened By Job Supervisor

Horseplay on the job is no laughing matter, especially when it lands in a courtroom.

An Allegheny County jury decided this week that careless behavior by a Beaver County man supervising a construction project at Mercy Hospital was worth $1.1 million.

That’s what was awarded on Thursday to a Wilkinsburg plastering contractor, George R. Kalanish,  whose existing back injury was worsened by what he said was roughhousing by a job supervisor. Kalanish was working as a subcontractor for Bridges and Company. He was carrying a can of drywall compound in each hand when Donovan came up from behind and pushed him.

“I felt the strongest pain that I ever felt in my back, like … I had been shot,” Kalanish said in a court deposition taken in October.

“It was horseplay that persisted over two jobs,” Kalanish’s attorney, Gary J. Ogg, said yesterday. The bulk of the award was for future pain and suffering caused by Donovan’s carelessness at a job site at Mercy Hospital in November 1992. The award included $20,000 for lost wages and $50,000 for medical expenses, Ogg said.

The jury determined that the event triggered a prior back injury and resulted in Kalanish going through two more back surgeries, which still didn’t relieve his pain. He is able to work, “but will have back pain forever,” Ogg said Kalanish, 43, of Wilkinsburg, got $1,121,894 in compensatory damages after the jury decided that both Edwin I. Donovan II, of Aliquippa, a former job supervisor for Bridges & Company Inc., and the North Side company were liable for the award.

$1.1 million

DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients’ cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client’s case.