$55 Million Verdict Against Henry Ford Health System After Child Suffered Brain Damage Following ER Discharge

When a young child was brought to a Henry Ford Cottage Hospital emergency room struggling to breathe, the family had already been through this before. According to the facts developed at trial, the child had been taken to emergency rooms repeatedly over the preceding week for the same respiratory complaints. On this visit the examining physician diagnosed bronchiolitis, concluded that her symptoms did not warrant admission, and sent the family home rather than keeping her for observation. No admission was ordered, and no overnight monitoring was arranged.

The child's condition did not stabilize. The following morning, with breathing difficulties continuing, the family was again transporting her toward medical care when she suffered a respiratory arrest. She survived, but the oxygen deprivation during the arrest left her with severe and permanent brain damage. Full-time care would be required for the rest of her life.

The family retained Brian J. McKeen of McKeen and Associates to bring a medical malpractice action against Henry Ford Health System and Henry Ford Cottage Hospital. The theory McKeen presented at trial was straightforward: a child who had been brought to emergency rooms repeatedly over the prior six days, and who was again in respiratory distress, should have been admitted to a hospital under accepted standards of emergency care. Whether the underlying cause was a respiratory infection or a calcium deficiency did not matter, McKeen argued, because either way the child belonged in a hospital where help would have been at hand when she arrested. Sending her home instead set up a foreseeable and preventable catastrophe.

At trial, medical experts addressed both the clinical picture at the time of the discharge and what admission for observation would have meant for the outcome. The defense maintained that the decision to discharge fell within the range of acceptable clinical judgment. The jury was not persuaded. It returned a verdict of $55,574,408 against the Henry Ford defendants, finding them eighty percent at fault, with the remaining fault assigned to a hospital and a radiologist the family had already settled with.

The verdict, returned in 2001, was among the largest medical malpractice jury awards in Michigan at the time. As is standard in Michigan, the gross jury figure was not what the family ultimately recovered: the trial court reduced the future-damages portion to present value, bringing the award down to about $17.9 million, then applied the state's statutory cap on noneconomic damages and credited the earlier settlements. Henry Ford appealed, and in a March 1, 2005 unpublished opinion (Docket No. 248358), the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment. The Michigan Supreme Court later dismissed the defense's application for further review by stipulation of the parties, leaving the judgment in place.