$11 Million Settlement in Case of Misdiagnosis
J. Doe V. Manson Construction Company
Manson Construction Co. (“Manson”) recently paid $11 million to settle a personal injury lawsuit filed by Cunningham Bounds, LLC. Manson is an international maritime construction company based in Seattle, Washington. Our client was employed by Manson as a deckhand and worked in Jacksonville, Florida.
In January 2016, our client developed pneumonia while working on one of Manson’s tugboats. Even though our client asked to see a doctor, Manson ordered him to go to a local urgent care clinic that did not have a doctor available. The nurse practitioner who treated our client committed a cascade of medical errors. She misdiagnosed him with bronchitis, prescribed the wrong antibiotics to him, ignored clear indications that he needed to be admitted to a hospital, and wrongly advised Manson that he could fly from Jacksonville, Florida to his home in Mobile.
Based on the advice from the urgent care clinic, Manson bought our client a plane ticket from Jacksonville to Mobile. Once our client boarded the flight, his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he developed a whole-body infection called sepsis. As his flight was approaching the Mobile airport, he went into septic shock. After the plane landed, he was rushed to Providence Hospital, where he remained for the next three months. Ultimately, he developed gangrene in his fingers and toes due to the sepsis, and his doctors were forced to amputate all of his fingers, his left thumb, his left leg below the knee, and his right foot.
We filed suit against Manson under a long-established, but rarely used, concept in maritime law. That is: a maritime employer is legally responsible for the malpractice of medical providers it selects to treat its employees. The case was litigated extensively with more than 35 depositions taken across the country. Our experts in the case had backgrounds in immunology, microbiology, medicine, life-care planning, and economics. Two weeks before trial, Manson agreed to pay our client $11 million, which will provide him with medical care and financial security for the rest of his life.
