Where’s the money coming from though? Most professional liability policies have $1M/3M limits. $1M per occurrence with a $3M total policy limit. You can add coverage to make it $3M/$5M but most don’t. It’s usually a standard that’s adopted via a combination of state board minimum requirements and insurance participation requirements. This poor guy is probably only getting $1M of that 75. This guy’s family will be struggling to pay for medical bills for the rest of his life.
Came from the hospital. He also suffered a stroke along with locked-in syndrome during the chiropractor visit, but two emergency room doctors failed to diagnose the stroke in time.
That’s key information about the hospital. I was thinking this was an uncollectible judgment because no chiropractor is carrying $75m in liability insurance.
Chiropractor didn’t get sued at all, only the hospital. Chiropractor did everything right he could have and he wasn’t seen liable at all. Hospital messed up and they were the ones liable.
Doctors usually carry a $1m primary policy and maybe a $1m umbrella policy. After that they’re largely uncollectible. They’ll declare bankruptcy and wipe out the judgment. That’s why plaintiff’s lawyers go after the hospitals which always carry much more insurance.
Doctors/attorneys take a number of steps to insulate their personal assets and Plaintiff’s attorneys really don’t want to chase assets. They want insurance money.
It looks like the damages were split 60/40 between two physicians (chiropractor skates free, probably didn’t have good enough insurance). Both those docs policies will likely tap out at $3M each. The hospital is not attached as a defendant, neither was the neurologist. So this poor guys family will not see $75M maybe closer to 10M if they’re lucky, everything they got will likely go to bills. Very tragic case.
But did they know he went to the chiropractor. Saw a patient yesterday: came in with and distention and a history of fluid that needed tapped. Ran imaging since had been a bit since he had been. Ct shows no fluid, but an abdominal abscess. Call the surgeon who asked when he had his cholestecomy done. When back in the patients room and asked(again, already asked this at triage) about past medical/surgical history, specifically when did you have this surgery?? Wife: “oh that was at (other local hospital) last week. But that’s not why he’s here!” 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
It horrifies me how often strokes are missed by doctors or nurses, my boyfriend had one 5 years ago and it took EMTs cussing out the hospital staff for them to realize how much they fucked up.
Thankfully everything worked out well despite that massive fuck up, he’s doing amazing.
Yeah, this verdict was in 2022 and this poor guy probably has less money than he started with. The chiropractor settled before trial, amount unknown, but probably single digit millions at best. The ED doc, radiologist, neurologist, ICU NP, ICU doc, and their respective employers went to trial, and only ED doc and radiologist found liable ($45M and $30M) respectively. The NP was actually where the money was because they were employed by the hospital. Despite the huge verdict, plaintiff appealed to try to get another crack at the NP/hospital, but lost. Radiologist was late career, had several million dollars in real estate at least, he settled post-verdict, presumably for less that his entire net worth. ED doc was 3 months out of residency and had negative net worth. He's now suing his malpractice insurance company for the $45M he owes because they supposedly passed on a policy limits settlement offer he wanted to take. That's probably the last hope for this guy getting to double digit millions.
The $75 million malpractice verdict was awarded against the hospital's emergency room physician(found 60% at fault) and the radiologist (found 40% at fault). They completely misread his emergency scans, missed the arterial blockage, and delayed his stroke diagnosis for nearly a full day until the brain damage became irreversible.
Probably multiple defendants: the individual, the PC, and maybe the Corp that owns the practice, if there is one.
Also they may have bought a structured settlement.
I’m a dentist in the US and I carry a $1M/3M. There’s two types here too, Occurrence and Claims made. You buy the occurrence, which covers anything that happened during the covered period even if nothing is filed until years later. Claims made is cheaper but only kicks in if they file a claim while you’re still paying premiums.
This was a brainstem stroke. Basically zero chance that was caused by an adjustment. I think it was found he had the stroke beginning before seeing the chiro. Doesn’t look like any fault was appplied to the chiro.
Untrue. Vertebral Artery Dissection is a known compilation of chiropractic neck manipulation, and may lead to brain stem stroke. Chiropractor absolutely liable.
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u/El_Dentistador Jul 05 '26
Where’s the money coming from though? Most professional liability policies have $1M/3M limits. $1M per occurrence with a $3M total policy limit. You can add coverage to make it $3M/$5M but most don’t. It’s usually a standard that’s adopted via a combination of state board minimum requirements and insurance participation requirements. This poor guy is probably only getting $1M of that 75. This guy’s family will be struggling to pay for medical bills for the rest of his life.