Judge hikes Kaleida payment to $19 million for paralyzed businessman
Jury award exceeded for Olean man
State Supreme Court Justice Timothy J. Drury has increased to $19.5 million the amount a Buffalo jury recently ordered Kaleida Health to pay an Olean businessman left permanently paralyzed after a massive stroke.
Attorneys for Daniel C. Oakes contend that doctors at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital failed to diagnose what they called “classic symptoms” of a leaking brain aneurysm that led to a debilitating stroke.
Drury found that the jury’s $5 million award to Oakes “deviates materially from what would be fair compensation.”
He cited “the devastating effect the stroke has had” on the quality of life for Oakes, 52, a former excavation contractor, and his wife and full-time home nurse, Lisa, 52.
Court officials also confirmed Thursday that Drury has given the Cattaraugus County government the green light to attempt to gain reimbursement from Kaleida in the Oakes case for the nearly $1 million in Medicaid spending that the county incurred after the stroke.
In a 28-page post-trial decision, Drury categorically denies Kaleida’s contention that he improperly sided with Oakes in the 13-week trial.
The judge declined to comment because of continuing litigation in the case.
Francis M. Letro, Oakes’ chief attorney, and Ronald J. Wright, the Oakes family’s other trial attorney, called Drury’s post-trial rulings proper.
“This is the verdict that a jury should have given,” Letro said.
He also confirmed that immediately after the verdict last April, he asked the judge to either increase the damage payments or order a new trial on issues of financial damages alone.
After about 18 hours of deliberations, the jury had ordered Kaleida to pay 94 percent of the award to Oakes. The jury also found Oakes’ Olean doctor and a Jamestown neurologist, both covered by malpractice insurance, partly at fault in the case.
Barbara L. Schifeling, Kaleida’ primary attorney in the case, said, “Kaleida is considering an appeal.”
Schifeling said Kaleida recently filed a motion with Drury that is designed to “severely curtail any monetary exposure of Kaleida Health” in the case. She declined to outline the new motions but said she expects a court hearing on them within weeks.
Letro blamed Oakes’ permanent medical problems on what he described as the lax and dysfunctional care provided in Kaleida’s Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital in Amherst.
He said he fully expects further proceedings in the case before Drury, as well as a Kaleida appeal.
Letro said the medical problems Oakes suffered after the stroke in 1998 are “a classic example of health care professionals not talking to each other” to coordinate their care of patients.
After weeks of vomiting and severe headaches stemming from a ruptured brain aneurysm, Oakes had a CT brain scan at Millard Fillmore Suburban on July 23, 1998. But the hospital sent the scan to an outside agency for review, and the rupture was not detected, leading to his Aug. 7, 1998, stroke, Letro said.
Letro said that the headaches and vomiting were “classic symptoms” of a leaking brain aneurysm but that because the CT scan apparently “went unread,” Oakes was not treated in time to prevent the stroke that left him paralyzed and dependent on an electric wheelchair and 24/7 care from his wife.
Though Oakes, whose condition has not changed appreciably since early March 1999, qualifies for care in a skilled-nursing facility, his wife, in addition to working three jobs and overseeing their business, has created a skilled-nursing facility of sorts in their home, Letro said.
According to court documents, attorneys for Kaleida asked Drury months ago to reduce the amount of the jury award or order a new trial and to also recuse himself so another judge could handle the case.
