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It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this medical malpractice case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Medical Center, Mercy, Methodist, or Sutter.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this personal injury lawsuit and its proceedings.)

Dr. Stein further opines that the infected fluid around Mr. Brown’s thecal sac caused injury to Mr. Brown.

Defendants breached the standard of care by delaying in the diagnosis and treatment of the infection in Mr. Brown’ lumbar spine.

Dr. Majore will be opining that based on Dr. Singh’s operation report, it is obvious that Mr. Brown suffered from an intraspinal infection. Plaintiff has nerve damage secondary to arachnoiditis. The nerve damage is permanent.

Dr. Majore has the opinion that Mr. Brown requires vocational rehabilitation.

DEFENDANTS FELL BELOW THE STANDARD CARE FOLLOWING THE SEPTEMBER 10, 2008 EMERGENCY SURGERY

Defendants breached the standard of care by failing to make a diagnose or classification of Mr. Brown’s condition so that Mr. Brown could received the proper continuity of medical care appropriate to his condition.

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

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It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this elder abuse case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Medical Center, Mercy, Methodist, or Sutter.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this personal injury lawsuit and its proceedings.)

The separate statement provides what it purports to be a summary of responses to interrogatories 25 and 45, but fails to make reference to the specific portions of the lengthy discovery responses it purports to summarize. Moreover, there is no reference to or summary of the voluminous medical records with Plaintiffs response refers to and incorporates under C.C.P. §2030.230. Accordingly, the separate statement is deficient. Citation to the evidence in support of each material fact must include reference to the exhibit, title, page, and line numbers. California Rules of Court, Rule 3.1350(d).

It is not the court’s (or Plaintiffs’) responsibility to pour over lengthy documents to find the evidence on which defendants rely to determine whether defendants’ characterization of the interrogatories and plaintiffs’ responses, are accurate. The “Golden Rule of Summary Adjudication” is: “If it is not set forth in the separate statement, it does not exist.” Parkview Villas Assn., Inc. v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. (2005) 133 Cal.App.4th 1197, 1208. Defendants’ deficient separate statement makes the in determining the presence or absence of material issues of fact extremely difficult if not impossible. If defendants had asked discrete questions requesting factual support for each element of each cause of action and provided the response thereto, perhaps it would be a more a manageable task.

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

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The following blog entry is written to illustrate a common motion filed during civil litigation. Reviewing this kind of filing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this automobile accident lawsuit and its proceedings.)

ARGUMENT
LEGAL STANDARDS ON MOTION TO STRIKE

Motions to strike are not favored. Weil & Brown, Civil Procedure Before Trial, § 7:197. The policy of California law is to construe the pleadings liberally … with a view to substantial justice. C.CP. § 452.

Plaintiffs First Amended Complaint meets the notice pleading requirements under California law. What is important is that the complaint as a whole contain sufficient facts to apprise the defendant of the basis upon which the plaintiff is seeking relief. Perkins v. Superior Ct. (1981) 117 Cal.App.3d 1, 6. Specificity is not required in the Complaint because modern discovery procedures necessarily affect the amount of detail that should be required in a pleading. Ludgatelns. Co. v. Lockheed Martin Corp. (2000) 82 Cal. App.4th 592, 608. The First Amended Complaint adequately informs Dr. Lee of the damages sought and the legal bases for those damages. Since Plaintiff has met the notice pleading requirements, Dr. Lee’s motion to strike should fail on all accounts.

PARAGRAPH 32 SHOULD NOT BE STRICKEN SINCE PLAINTIFF’S ALLEGATIONS ARE FACT-SPECIFIC AND ESTABLISH IN DETAIL HOW DR. LEE ACTED WITH MALICE AND OPPRESSION

Defendant seeks to mislead the Court by alleging that Plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages is conclusory and based solely on the new fact alleged that Dr. Lee was awake for at least 18 hours prior to the incident. Dr. Lee claims that Plaintiff’s new allegations contained within paragraphs 31 and 32 do not alter the factual scenario of the case, but that is exactly what the new allegations have done.

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

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The following blog entry is written to illustrate a common motion filed during civil litigation. Reviewing this kind of filing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this car accident lawsuit and its proceedings.)

PLAINTIFF’S COST BILL FOR MODELS AND EXHIBITS IN THE AMOUNT OF $4,987.62 IS INHERENTLY REASONABLE.

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It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this medical malpractice case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Medical Center, Mercy, Methodist, or Sutter.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this birth injury lawsuit and its proceedings.)

Here, plaintiff alleges that defendants failed to advise her mother, Haley White, that a pregnancy with twins carries more risks than a single fetus, and that the defendants failed to advise the plaintiff’s mother of her right to an abortion. Plaintiff does not allege that there was anything wrong with the pregnancy, other than the fact that the plaintiff was a twin, or anything else to suggest that the plaintiff’s mother was at risk for complications or needed special precautions to prevent pre-term labor. Unlike Curlender v. Bio-Science Laboratories (1980) 106 Cal.App.3d 811, 165 Cal.Rptr. 477, where a properly performed genetic test would have provided a high probability (id. at p. 815) of disclosing the risk of Tay-Sachs disease, there is no test that could have been offered to plaintiff’s mother which would have revealed the potential problems allegedly suffered by plaintiff, Joan White. Additionally, when testing revealed the shortening of Haley White’s cervix, and cerclage was recommended, Ms. White refused it.

A hypothetical possibility that some unstated or unknown action on the part of the moving defendants might have revealed some problem does not establish a reasonably probable causal connection (Jones v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., supra, 163 Cal.App.3d at p. 403) between defendants’ alleged negligence and plaintiff’s injuries. A less than 50-50 possibility that defendants’ omission caused the harm does not meet the requisite reasonable medical probability test of proximate cause. (Id. at p. 404).

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

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The following blog entry is written to illustrate a common motion filed during civil litigation. Reviewing this kind of filing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this automobile accident lawsuit and its proceedings.)

●Defendant Susan Lee, M.D., failed to use reasonable care appropriate to avoid driving on public roads, streets and highways in a sleep-deprived and fatigued state and also acted wantonly, recklessly and with malice and oppression at the time of the incident. She admitted to the police at the scene of the incident that she had fallen asleep at the wheel.

Also, in Paragraph 32 Plaintiff pled a detailed factual account of Dr. Lee’s training at National Hospital, which was taken from the deposition of Caleb Smith, M.D., who was Dr. Lee’s superior at National Hospital and administered many of the residency trainings. These facts build the foundation for Dr. Lee’s malicious and oppressive conduct on the date of the incident. These facts take up approximately four pages of the entire First Amended Complaint. In the interest of brevity, Plaintiff has not repeated the lengthy allegations herein.

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

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It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this elder abuse case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Medical Center, Mercy, Methodist, or Sutter.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this personal injury lawsuit and its proceedings.)

Further, the motion completely ignores and fails to address the fact that Plaintiffs’ discovery responses include exercise of Plaintiffs’ right to respond to the interrogatories by reference to documents where the response calls for a compilation, audit, abstract or summary of records. See C.C.P. §2030.230. After setting forth seven pages of facts, Plaintiffs discovery responses state:

A further response to this interrogatory would require a compilation, abstract, audit or summary of the medical records of Paul Hill’s health care providers, the burden and expense of preparation of which would be substantially the same for the propounding party, and accordingly Plaintiff responds under C.C.P. §2030.230 and refers to the medical records of Paul Hill, including the records of St. Edna’s Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, and Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, Prairie La Vida Medical Group, Starcare/Gateway Medical Group, and PacifiCare/Secure Horizons.

The moving papers are completely devoid of any evidence that the records referred to in Plaintiffs’ discovery responses are factually devoid sufficient to meet their burden. To the contrary, the medical records clearly establish XYZ Care’s knowledge of Mr. Jackson’s condition, knowledge that failure to address his care needs would subject him to severe injury and death, knowledge of his deteriorating condition, and complete failure by XYZ Care’s staff to take any action, as required by applicable federal and state regulations standards of care, to avoid the known perils to Mr. Jackson.

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

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The following blog entry is written to illustrate a common motion filed during civil litigation. Reviewing this kind of filing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this car accident lawsuit and its proceedings.)

In essence, defendant argues that the expert witness bill from ABC Engineering should be substantially cut because Mr. Ridley Hall used computer programs to create an animation and blow-ups that were used at trial. The argument goes on to sate that such a presentation could have been done by less expensive, low-tech means . No explanation, however, is given by defendant as to how computer modeling and a computer-based animation could have been done less expensively to communicate the same thing. Obviously, due to evidentiary foundational requirements, Mr. Hall had to base his animation on appropriate documentation and evidence in order to create an accurate reconstruction of the subject accident. There is no declaration submitted by defendant by any competent expert that says that the computerized accident reconstruction could be done at a more reasonable expense or using “low-tech means.”
In fact, the jury found that Mr. Hall’s presentation was so important that they asked for the animation to be replayed during their deliberations. All of Mr. Hall’s computer-created exhibits were painstakingly used one by one during his testimony, as was his animation.

The case cited by defendant, El Dorado Meat Co. v. Yosemite Meat and Locker Service, Inc., (2007) 150 Cal.App.4th 612, actually supports the type of evidence that was used in this trial:

The problem with the electronic equipment and the labor costs rejected in Science Applications, as we understand it, was that these were more expensive methods of doing things that could be done by less-expensive, low-tech means, and therefore they were not reasonably necessary to the conduct of the litigation but were “merely convenient or beneficial to its preparation.” (§1033.5, subd. (c)(2).)

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

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It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this birth injury case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Medical Center, Mercy, Methodist, or Sutter.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this personal injury lawsuit and its proceedings.)

THE CARE AND TREATMENT RENDERED BY DAVID LEE, MD, WAS WITHIN THE APPLICABLE STANDARD OF PRACTICE
Plaintiff essentially contends that Dr. Lee failed to properly deliver Sean Brown, resulting in an Erb’s palsy. In order for plaintiff to hold Dr. Lee liable for medical malpractice, plaintiffs must establish the applicable standard of care and the defendant’s breach of that standard.

The declaration of board-certified OB/GYN, Hank Black, M.D., and supporting evidence filed herewith, establish that Dr. Lee complied with the requisite standard of care. Because plaintiff’s contentions against Dr. Lee clearly involve actions not within the common knowledge of laymen, the standard of care must be decided on the basis of expert testimony. Flowers v. Torrance Memorial Hospital Medical Center (1994) 8 Cal.4th 992, 1001.

Based on the medical evidence, Dr. Black’s opinion is that David Lee, M.D., complied with the standard of care regarding the care and treatment she rendered to Sean Brown.

Dr. Black’s opinions are supported by the medical evidence. The evidence reflects that Ms. Brown came into the hospital in active labor. Dr. Lee was contacted at 1:00 a.m. and arrived by 1:30 a.m. Shoulder dystocia was encountered and properly handled by Dr. Lee resulting in the delivery of a live baby boy, Sean Brown.

For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

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| by

The following blog entry is written to illustrate a common motion filed during civil litigation. Reviewing this kind of filing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this automobile accident lawsuit and its proceedings.)

PLAINTIFF HAS SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGED FACTS WHICH ESTABLISH MALICE AND OPPRESSION ON THE PART OF DR. LEE

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