Negligence Costs Doctor $1.43 Million

In a stunning blow to St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, a civil jury Monday found one of the hospital’s leading physicians negligent for failing to diagnose and treat a common but curable eye disease that left a premature baby blind.

After two full days of deliberations, jurors announced that 2 1/2-year-old Madison Scott’s blindness was worth $1.43 million in economic damages, pain and suffering.

Jurors decided that Dr. Robert L. Hillyard, director of St. Joseph’s special care nursery, is liable for 42% of those costs. Hillyard had acted as Madison’s primary doctor when she was born three months prematurely in August 1996.

The jury broke the total award down into $540,000 for pain and suffering, $188,225 for future medical expenses and $700,000 for lost future earnings.

The verdict amounts to the value in today’s dollars of Madison’s lost wages and her medical expenses, which together the jury determined to be $6.345 million over her lifetime.

Madison’s lawyers had asked for more. But cradling his sleepy child outside the courtroom, Curt Scott, Madison’s father, said he was happy with the verdict. “I’m really hopeful that this will avert a tragedy for other parents, and that other babies won’t slip through the cracks and lose their sight,” he said. “I think it’s sufficient.”

The case deals St. Joseph the latest in a series of publicity blows following revelations two months ago that hospital staff mistakenly switched two newborns and sent then home with the wrong parents.

But the case had been expected to make news for a different reason: as a cause celebre in the fight for patients’ rights against health maintenance organizations.

Madison’s parents sued a number of defendants along with Hillyard, including their HMO, Cigna Health Corp., and intended to challenge federal law restricting damage awards against HMOs. Cigna, however, along with St. Joseph Hospital, St. Joseph Medical Group and other defendants, has negotiated confidential settlements with the Scotts.

But Hillyard refused to settle, arguing in court that he was not responsible for Madison’s blindness.

Hillyard actually “pulled the baby through life and death, and this is the thanks he gets,” said his attorney, Tony Discoe, in closing arguments. Discoe could not be reached for comment after Monday’s verdict.

But Mark Hiepler, the Scotts’ attorney, told jurors that retinopathy of prematurity, a disease common to premature babies and easily curable if diagnosed early, robbed Madison of sight.

He argued that Hillyard could have prevented the disease had he ensured that Madison’s eyes were reexamined after an initial checkup after her birth. Instead, Madison was discharged from the hospital without receiving a second exam.

A specialist diagnosed the disease a month later. By then, it was too late to save her eyesight.

“This whole thing was about accountability, responsibility,” Hiepler said after the verdict. “No premature babies should go through this. It’s so curable; it’s so preventable.”