Jury Votes $2-Million Award in Medical Case : Automobile Accident Victim Says Treatment Left Him With Severe and Permanent Injuries

If an Orange County jury’s award of $2 million is upheld, Arthur Zuniga said Wednesday, it should take care of him for the rest of his life.

But he’d rather not have the money and have things the way they were before May 20, 1979.

“It’s kind of hard to believe; I’ve never been a millionaire before . . . but no one in their right mind would want to be a millionaire this way,” he said.

The Superior Court jury on Tuesday awarded $2,009,500 to the former Irvine resident, who claimed his treatment at the UCI Medical Center following a 1979 auto accident left him with severe, permanent injuries.

Reduction of Award Sought The jury unanimously voted to hold the medical center, located in Orange, liable for Zuniga’s injuries, then voted 10 to 2 on the award figure, according to Zuniga’s attorney, Marjorie W. Day.

The award to Zuniga, 47, now a resident of Palm Desert, was for his suffering, medical costs and economic losses, Day said.

Medical center attorney Richard E. Madory said he asked Judge James R. Ross to reduce the award to $750,000. Ross scheduled arguments on the request next week.

Day said the former telephone repairman is unable to work and must breathe through a tube in his throat, and that he also sustained brain damage and suffers from chronic lung disease and scars as a result of his treatment at the hospital.

Zuniga said he suffers a variety of pains, but a tracheotomy that has left a permanent hole leading to his throat bothers him the most because of the limits it places on him.

“I used to like deep-sea fishing, but I’m too paranoid to fish off a boat now because if I fall in the water, I’m dead,” he said. The unattractiveness of the tracheotomy also “makes it real hard to find a nice woman,” said Zuniga, who lives with his parents.

The brain damage has caused him to forget how to put a telephone together, Zuniga said. He can’t work anyway, he added, because of a hernia and because it is difficult to be outdoors in bad weather with his tracheotomy.

All the permanent injuries and 30 of the 31 surgeries Zuniga has undergone since the May 20, 1979, auto accident are the result of the poor treatment he received after the accident, Day claimed.

Day said Zuniga was admitted to the medical center suffering a ruptured spleen, but for reasons still unexplained was left unattended for more than three hours before going into surgery.

The lack of attention resulted in a loss of oxygen to Zuniga’s brain that caused some brain damage, she said.

Hospitalized 4 1/2 Months Day also said those treating Zuniga left a tube in his throat “for an unwarranted period of time,” causing scarring that forced the permanent tracheotomy he has today, and that other separate instances of poor treatment caused other injuries.

Day said experts told her that Zuniga should have been completely cured and out of the hospital in seven to 10 days if treated properly. He stayed in the hospital 4 1/2 months after the accident, however, and has been forced to return repeatedly for more surgery.

Madory said the hospital’s main defense in the monthlong trial was that the actions of those treating Zuniga did not constitute negligence.

Zuniga “had a 60 to 70% chance of dying” when he came in, and his impairments are a result both of his condition after the accident and medical treatments that were necessary to save his life, Madory said.

Before and during the trial, the hospital three times offered to settle the case, with the largest offer $500,000, Day said. She said she had asked for a $940,000 settlement before the trial.