When a jury verdict in a medical malpractice case does not appear to be supported by the weight of the evidence, a trial court has the discretion to order a new trial. In rare cases, if a medical malpractice award is viewed as excessive, a new trial could be ordered unless there is an agreement among the parties to lower the award amount. The procedure is known as a “remittitur”. Although a remittitur does not benefit plaintiffs, medical malpractice attorneys can increase the award due to their client when an “additur” is ordered.
How an Additur Benefits Plaintiffs
In some cases, a plaintiff will be awarded a new trial if the damage amount found by the jury appears to be inadequate. In that case, a court will require the case to be retried unless the defendant makes certain concessions. A defendant may agree to pay a larger amount than that which was awarded by the jury in order to properly compensate the plaintiff and avoid a lengthy re-trial. Courts, both on the trial and appellate level, lack the authority to increase the jury damage assessments by themselves. This is the reason why a new trial will be necessary for the plaintiff to be compensated in the event that the judge notices that the amount due to the plaintiff is too small. Medical malpractice attorneys believe that an additur is a useful tool in cases when it was clear a healthcare provider breached the standard of care and yet the jury did not find an appropriate damage amount.
Medical Malpractice Attorneys in New Jersey and Philadelphia
If you or a family member have recently been the victim of medical negligence, it is possible that you would like to speak with our professionals. Please contact the Mininno Law Office for a free case evaluation, or call for a free consultation at (856) 833-0600 in New Jersey, or (215) 567-2380 in Philadelphia.
Governor Bill Haslam made no secrets about his agenda to considerably limit the civil lawsuits within Tennessee. Now with the passing of the “Tennessee Civil Justice Act of 2011”, medical malpractice attorneys believe that he may have done just that. Pain and suffering, along with other non-economic damages, will now be capped at a maximum of $750,000. Furthermore, the new Act will also limit punitive damages, in both medical malpractice and personal injury cases, to only $500,000. The most shocking, and potentially limiting to plaintiffs and their medical malpractice attorneys, may be the limits placed on catastrophic cases, which will be $1 million but could effect people forever. These cases qualify as the most serious and life altering scenarios of medical malpractice. Some examples of catastrophic cases caused by medical negligence include when patients become paralyzed, blinded, burned, need an amputation, or pass away when children still qualify as minors. This new law seriously inhibits the rights of patients in seeking compensation that will once again make them whole. Although these cases hopefully will not occur too often, in these rare instances it is highly unjust to limit the amount that plaintiffs can seek at trial but such a large amount.
Preston Broussard, on behalf of his late wife, filed the lawsuit against Dubuis Hospital and Dr. Sreedhar Polavarapu. The medical malpractice attorneys stated in the lawsuit that the “defendants’ failure to safely monitor and restrain Dorothy Broussard led to the deprivation of oxygen that caused Mrs. Broussard’s untimely demise.” Obviously the lack of oxygen over a sustained period of time had an adverse effect but no one on the staff recognized the problem in time. The medical lawyers found that the saddest part of this story was how the family discovered the woman. The lawsuit stated,
First, many argue that since insurance companies charge very high premiums for doctors to gain liability insurance, doctors charge their patients more money. Secondly, a doctor’s fear this his or her patients may sue causes them to act in different ways. Many physicians claim that their fear of a lawsuit causes them to order additional tests and procedures (a practice that has since been penned “Defensive Medicine“) just 
Brian Santana was born with no arms and one leg. The parent’s lawsuit claims that Morel and the ultra sound technician should have detected the missing limbs. The medical malpractice attorneys also found that both the doctor and the technician signed a report stating that they had seen all four limbs during the ultrasound. This news led the parents to believe that their child was healthy and would not be suffering from any major birth defects. The plaintiffs argued that because of this negligence, they were not properly informed about their son’s health and had they been, they would have terminated the pregnancy. This failure to properly diagnose the young boy and properly inform the parents of his health is a clear violation of the acceptable standard of medical care. It is the hope of the medical malpractice attorneys that this money will be an appropriate amount to care for the child, who will need considerable medical attention for his entire life.
Months ago, the Mininno Law Office blog posted about the anti-epileptic drug Topamax, which was shown to cause oral malformations, such as cleft lip or cleft palate, in newborns whose mothers took the drug during pregnancy. The FDA recently changed the drug’s classification from