$4.25 Million Retrial Verdict for Teen Paralyzed by Steroid Overdose in Hawaii

In 2003, a fourteen-year-old girl traveling in Hawaii began showing alarming symptoms: a facial rash, slurred speech, and difficulty keeping her balance. Physicians at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu diagnosed her with lupus affecting her brain and put her in the care of Dr. Kara Yamamoto of Kapiolani Medical Specialists, who proposed an aggressive four-week intravenous pulse regimen using Solu-Medrol, a high-dose corticosteroid.

The treatment did not go as hoped. Instead of stabilizing the lupus, the steroid regimen produced acute steroid myopathy: rapid, severe muscle breakdown that left the girl with profound weakness from her hips and shoulders down to her hands and feet. She spent six months in rehabilitation. The muscle damage was permanent, limiting the use of her limbs for everyday tasks.

Her family retained Philip Russotti, who appeared in the Hawaii Circuit Court pro hac vice on behalf of the firm then known as Wingate, Russotti and Shapiro LLP. At the first trial in February 2009, the jury returned a $6.15 million verdict. The trial court then reduced the award to approximately $4.5 million under Hawaii's statutory cap on non-economic damages before entering judgment.

Defense counsel appealed. The Hawaii Supreme Court vacated the judgment in July 2011, ruling that the jury's findings on negligence and informed consent were irreconcilable and that certain expert testimony had been admitted in error. The court ordered a full retrial rather than simply reinstating the reduced award.

At the retrial, the jury again found for the plaintiff and returned a verdict of $4,250,000. The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals later affirmed the retrial proceedings in a 2014 summary disposition order, with docket number CAAP-13-0001306. The outcome confirmed liability on the informed-consent theory: the family had not been told about alternative dosing options that might have avoided the injury.