Physician Pays $2.1 Million When Liver Failure Occurs After Prescribing Cholesterol Lowering Medication.
Case Summary:
Amount: $2,100,000Court: Franklin County Common Pleas Court
Date: October 2003
Plaintiff's Counsel: David M. Paris
Description: Medical Malpractice / Wrongful Death
Our client's 54 year old wife died of drug induced liver failure leaving her husband of 31 years and 2 adult children. She was being treated with Baycol for high cholesterol by a primary care physician. The PDR recommends liver function studies before placing the patient on the drug (for a baseline) 6 weeks later, 12 weeks later and then every 6 months. Her liver function studies for the first 3 tests were normal. Six months later, the patient missed her follow up exam and in that interim was placed on other medications by a mental health care professional. Four months later, her Baycol prescription ran out. She called her family doctor and he renewed the prescription without first performing the liver function tests (as 10 months had elapsed since the last one). Four months later, our client awoke jaundiced and in fulminant liver failure. All other probable causes were ruled out. She passed away 13 weeks later waiting for a liver transplant.
Plaintiff's experts opined that the family physician was negligent in failing to perform the liver testing timely; and that had they been performed before the prescription was renewed, they would have been abnormal prompting a reversal of her condition. Defendant's expert opined that, although this was probably a drug induced liver failure, no one could state with any degree of certainty which drug or combination of drugs were responsible or what her liver enzymes would have been if tested before her prescription was renewed.
