Malpractice Award Cut in Half by Court
A $5.5-million medical malpractice verdict against anesthesiologist Aram Franklin and others has been cut nearly in half by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which said that state law limits non-economic damages to $250,000--considerably less than the $2,332,762 jurors had awarded Cassandra Green for pain and emotional distress.
The justices also subtracted $500,000 Green had received in settlement from Temple Hospital in Los Angeles, and some wrongly awarded costs, calculating the revised verdict at $2,917,000.
Green, now 47, the mother of five children, suffered permanent brain damage and was left a quadriplegic after surgery in 1977 to reopen blocked Fallopian tubes.
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