Medical Malpractice: Preventing Medical Mistakes

Good Day Philadelphia, Fox 29 12/7/10

Tom Kline comments on Sacks verdict, NEJM Report on Good Day Philadelphia, Fox-TV

Kline, Safier, Yeisley obtain $5.2M verdict in hospital death case

Dec. 7, 2010

PHILADELPHIA -- A Common Pleas Court jury handed down a $5.2 million verdict today for the estate of a Philadelphia woman whose internal bleeding following a routine procedure was not treated in time to save her life.

Sandra Sacks, 72, suffered retroperitoneal bleeding following an elective cardiac catheterization performed on Oct. 5, 2007 at Jeanes Hospital in Philadelphia. The jury found, among other parties, Jeanes to be negligent.

Sacks complained of abdominal and groin pain but the bleeding, in the space between the peritoneum and her abdominal wall, was not treated with blood transfusions. Two days after the bleeding was diagnosed, Sacks lapsed into hypovolemic shock and eventually was placed on a ventilator. On Jan. 2, 2008, she died.

"The amount of the verdict is gratifying to the Sacks family" said Tom Kline, of Kline & Specter, P.C. who represented the Sacks family along with attorneys Regan Safier and Geary Yeisley.

He said the jury’s verdict recognized the pain and suffering Sacks endured over nearly three months, much of it spent in an Intensive Care Unit. Kline argued both Wrongful Death and Survival Act damages, on behalf of the decedent's estate, and her surviving 76-year-old spouse and two adult children.