Medical Malpractice Litigation: The Murray Case

Pennsylvania - New Jersey - New York - Nationwide

Suit claims man denied treatment, hospital disagrees

PHILADELPHIA - March 3, 2010 (WPVI) -- On Tuesday, Marcus Murray filed a lawsuit in federal court saying he is forever disabled because of what the Hospital of the University did not do; meanwhile, the hospital issued a statement Wednesday saying it didn't do anything wrong.

According to his lawyer, 56-year-old Murray became blind and brain damaged because he was denied desperately needed emergency care; care he couldn't pay for.

"He had a medical emergency, and that medical emergency was not met by medical care providers who are obligated to do so," family attorney Thomas Kline said.

According to a timeline of the incident assembled by Murray's attorney, he arrived at Underwood Memorial Hospital in New Jersey on May 2, 2008, complaining of chest pain. Some 7 and half hours later, at Christiana hospital in Delaware, he suffered cardiac arrest and though he was resuscitated, his sight and brain function were beyond saving. But, his lawyer says, it's what happened in between, at yet another hospital in still a third state, that made a bad situation worse.

"The Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania accepted him, said that they could and would provide the care that he needed and then they turned him away and they told him they didn't have insurance," Kline said.

As hospital documents show, Murray was assigned a bed at HUP, and received a bill. But despite that, the admitting doctor there refused to treat Murray and one nurse took the rare step of indicating why - "no medical insurance."

"There is a federal law that says a specialized hospital, like HUP, who has the capacity to treat a patient, cannot turn that patient away," Kline said.

In a statement, HUP says the allegations are "groundless, and that the hospital has criteria in place for accepting patients without regard to insurance coverage."

Mr. Murray's family, meanwhile, says those criteria didn't hold in this case.

Murray's attorney says he is seeking monetary damages for the events that forever changed his client's life. The Hospital says it "looks forward to defending it actions in this case."