Defense Verdict

On June 26, 2025, HPM&B Partner Patricia Thornton obtained a defense verdict in Supreme Court, New York County in a medical malpractice case after an almost 9-week trial. The plaintiff claimed that between April 2017 and June 2017, the defendant pain management physician was negligent in treating her for chronic lower back pain and a herniated disc, resulting in a right footdrop and the need for emergency neurosurgery on June 30, 2017. When the plaintiff first came to see the defendant physician in April 2017, at the referral of a non-party neurosurgeon, the defendant pain management physician recommended an epidural steroid injection, which the patient had previously had success with for her lower back pain two years prior.

Plaintiff claimed that the defendant pain management physician instead should have ordered an updated lumbar spine MRI during his first encounter with the patient and that had he done so, the pathology seen on imaging would have rendered an epidural steroid injection useless. Defense experts in pain management and neurosurgery testified that an updated MRI was not warranted earlier and once it was ordered by the defendant pain management physician in June 2017, the findings were amenable to conservative treatment and an epidural steroid injection was an appropriate treatment option for this patient. Plaintiff also claimed that the defendant pain management physician failed to refer her to a neurosurgeon and that had she been told surgery was her only option, she would have undergone surgery instead of conservative treatment.

Defendant testified at trial that not only had the patient come to him 16 days after seeing a neurosurgeon who recommended conservative treatment, but after the patient did not get relief from the epidural steroid injection he performed, that he suggested she see a neurosurgeon, which she declined. Plaintiff denied that our client discussed this with her, even though he documented it in his note from that visit and the note was date/time stamped. Thereafter, plaintiff continued to seek out conservative treatment options and sought treatment with the co-defendant internist, who was her primary care physician, and with co-defendant pain management physicians, who performed another epidural steroid injection. The patient ultimately developed a footdrop and required surgery, and she was left with a permanent footdrop. Plaintiff also claimed a subsequent back surgery in 2023 was attributed to defendants’ negligence. Over objection, the judge allowed 18 departure questions on the verdict sheet, 8 of which pertained to our client.  During the trial, plaintiff’s settlement demand was $4.6 million. The jury returned a defense verdict after several hours of deliberation.