$216.8 Million Verdict for Stroke Patient Misdiagnosed as Sinusitis

On August 9, 2000, Allan Navarro, a 50-year-old former professional basketball player, walked into the Carrollwood emergency room at University Community Hospital in Tampa complaining of severe headache, nausea, dizziness, and double vision. He told staff he had a family history of strokes. Despite those warning signs, the first person to examine him was an unlicensed expediter named Mark Herranz, not a physician. The attending doctor, Dr. Michael Austin, ordered CT scans, which came back negative, and discharged Navarro with a diagnosis of sinusitis and a prescription for painkillers.

Navarro returned the following morning with worsening symptoms. New scans revealed what the night before had missed: he had suffered an ischemic stroke in the cerebellum. Emergency brain surgery followed that afternoon. He spent a month in the hospital and roughly three months in a coma. When he emerged, he was permanently paralyzed, incontinent, and unable to eat or speak clearly. He requires around-the-clock care.

The Navarro family filed suit in 2002 in Florida's 13th Judicial Circuit. The case reached trial in September 2006 before Judge Gregory Holder. Lead plaintiffs' attorney C. Steven Yerrid, joined by co-counsel David Dickey and Richard Gilbert, argued that Franklin, Favata and Hulls, the medical group running the ER, had built a system that placed profit over patient safety by routinely having unlicensed staff conduct patient examinations without disclosure or physician oversight. The group spent 16 months in discovery before identifying Herranz as the expediter, and the judge later found evidence of active concealment. Franklin Favata filed a bankruptcy petition the day before the punitive damages phase; the court dismissed it as filed in bad faith.

After an 18-day trial, the jury returned a compensatory verdict of $116.7 million, allocating fault 25 percent each to Austin and Herranz and 50 percent to Franklin Favata. The economic component was $15.6 million; the noneconomic component, for Navarro's pain, disability, and loss of life enjoyment, was $100.5 million. A separate punitive phase then added $100.1 million against Franklin Favata, bringing the total to $216.8 million. The verdict was the largest medical malpractice award in Florida history. The Navarro family announced they would donate the entire punitive award to charities supporting spinal cord and brain injury patients.

Both defendants appealed to Florida's Second District Court of Appeal. The case also generated parallel insurance coverage litigation: Dr. Austin sued his insurer, ProNational, alleging it had pressured him during the case. Florida Bar commentators noted the verdict was likely one of the last of its magnitude in the state, because a 2003 tort reform law capped noneconomic damages in emergency room cases at $150,000. The Navarros' suit, filed in 2002, was grandfathered under the prior rules.