$1.2 Million Verdict Against Colorado Springs Attorney Who Let Client's Brain-Tumor Claim Expire

In 2006, a neuroradiologist in Colorado Springs reviewed Della Gallegos's MRI scan and missed a benign brain tumor. Had the tumor been caught at that stage, physicians said it could have been treated with Gamma Knife radiosurgery, a minimally invasive procedure carrying a success rate above 95 percent. Instead, the tumor went undetected for three years.

Gallegos eventually hired attorney Patric J. LeHouillier to file a medical malpractice action against the radiologist. LeHouillier obtained expert confirmation that the physician had breached the standard of care. The statute of limitations, however, ran out in December 2011, and no lawsuit was ever filed. By then, Gallegos had undergone three open brain surgeries. She was left with permanent loss of vision in her left eye, hearing loss on the left side, left-sided facial paralysis, and severe short-term memory loss. She could no longer work.

Gallegos filed a legal malpractice claim against LeHouillier. The case had an unusual history: a jury first found him negligent in 2014, but the Colorado Supreme Court reversed that verdict and ordered a retrial. Chad Hemmat of Anderson Hemmat took the case back to trial in January 2020 alongside co-counsel Cameron Hunter and Jason Alleman.

At the six-day retrial before Judge David A. Prince, Hemmat argued that LeHouillier not only missed the deadline but then tried to conceal his failure. LeHouillier testified that he had dropped Gallegos as a client in 2010, before the limitations period ran. His own case file, updated with fresh work nearly a year after his claimed withdrawal date, told a different story. His paralegal also contradicted his account of how the disengagement supposedly occurred.

The jury returned a verdict on January 21, 2020, assigning 72 percent of the fault to LeHouillier and 28 percent to Gallegos. The base damages award was $1,585,760. After applying the comparative-fault reduction and adding accrued interest, the court entered a final judgment of $2,204,783.31 on July 21, 2020. The case was ranked among the top verdicts in Colorado for the year by Law Week Colorado.