MAY 23, 2007 | HEALTHCARE/HOSPITAL LAW

Jury Awards Man $5.7 Million for Undiagnosed Skin Cancer

By Alexa Hyland
Daily Journal Staff Writer

A bedridden San Diego man who claimed a doctor failed to diagnose his skin cancer has received the largest medical-malpractice award in the state this year.
A Superior Court jury delivered the $5.7 million verdict after a weeklong trial, agreeing with the plaintiff’s lawyer that cysts on the right shoulder of Regis M. Reilly, 53, metastasized into cancer after dermatologist James C. Powers failed to remove them. Reilly v. Powers, GIC861199 (San Diego Super. Ct., settled May 18, 2007).
Reilly’s attorney, N. Denise Asher of San Diego-based Strauss & Asher, said she was pleased by the size of the award because it represented a sum large enough to offset the trauma caused by the misdiagnosis.
“I wanted my clients to hear someone say that what they went through had real value,” Asher said. “And receive a lot of vindication.”
Asher said Reilly is confined to his home under around-the-clock medical care.
Under the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, the award will be reduced to $1.9 million. The 1975 state act requires the court to cut general damages to $250,000 in medical-malpractice cases.
In general damages, the jury awarded the plaintiff’s wife $3 million for loss of consortium, which medical-malpractice experts consider an usually high amount.
“Loss of consortium damages are often flighty, risky and small,” said Arlen Cohen of Pasadena-based Cohen & Rudd.
The consortium award will be cut to the MICRA limit.
In another general damage award, the jury allocated $1.6 million to Reilly for physical and mental pain and suffering. Under MICRA restrictions, the amount will be reduced to $500,000 because it represents awards for both previous and future losses.
In economic damages, the jury awarded Reilly $1.1 million for lost income and $34,000 for his past and future health care.
Traditionally, plaintiffs’ attorneys strategically highlight economic damages in a medical-malpractice case, because they are not reduced under MICRA, said Steve Goldberg of Goldberg & Gille in Woodland Hills.
The defense, led by Nancy Vaughan, a partner in Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith’s San Diego office, declined to comment.
Reilly, who has a personal and family history of skin cancer, claims Powers failed to take a biopsy of the cyst that would have revealed the cancer.
“When you see pictures of the cysts, they are football-sized and deep in the tissue,” Asher said.
Reilly went through a series of surgeries to remove the cancerous tissue.
His wife, Karen Reilly, served as his nurse during the multiple surgeries and radiation treatments, Asher said.
The verdict eclipsed a $556,900 jury award in an April medical-malpractice case that also involved a misdiagnosis claim. A Los Angeles man who incurred an infection after removal of genital warts received $556,900 following a Los Angeles Superior Court trial. Doe v. County of Los Angeles, TC018884 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed April 27, 2005).
The verdict also is larger than a $5.3 million settlement in a medical-malpractice case involving an infant who suffered severe brain damage after experiencing ruptured membranes. The case, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District, was brought on behalf of the baby by an active-duty marine stationed at Camp Pendleton. Rojas v. U.S., 05CV0937 (S.D. Cal., filed May 5, 2005).

**********
© 2007 Daily Journal Corporation. All rights reserved.