Allegany County/Cumberland Personal Injury Lawyer

• W. Timothy Finan
• Jeffrey S. Getty

Allegany County District Court Judges:

• Stephan M. Moylan
• H. Jack Price, Jr.

• 2018: Truck Accident Case for $748,000.  This is a truck accident verdict our law firm obtained for our client in June 2018.  Our client’s husband was operating his truck traveling westbound on I-68 in Allegheny County.  Our client was operating her vehicle immediately behind him. Our case was that the defendant rear-ended our client from behind.  The defendant said our client’s husband backed into him. Our client claimed that she sustained a disc herniation at C4-C5.  While denying liability, the defendant’s attorney offered our client $125,000 to settle.  Thankfully, we rejected that offer.
• 2013: Medical Negligence for $7,006,729.  This case underscores that Cumberland juries are no longer issuing free passes to doctors.  The facts are tragic.  Two days after giving birth a mother and her newborn are discharged from the hospital. The following day, she arrives at Children’s Medical Group for a routine newborn examination. The pediatric nurse notes the child elevated heart rate of 184 beats per minute  – the normal range is between 130-160 bpm – but all other vital signs are normal. Two days later, the mother and infant return to the pediatrician’s office for a weight check and the same nurse once again notes an elevated heart rate of 192. During both visits, the treating pediatrician inexplicably does not address the heart rate. Three days pass and the newborn’s parents begin to notice that she is breathing rapidly and quickly rush her to Johns Hopkins Hospital. The hospital physicians conduct an echocardiogram that reveals an aortic coarctation, a heart defect where the aorta is abnormally narrowed. At this point, the child’s heart had been racing for at least five days.  The child undergoes emergency heart surgery. While on the operating table, the infant goes into full cardiac arrest. Luckily, she survives, but due to the loss of oxygen during the surgery, she suffers severe brain damage. She is diagnosed with cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder. Her parents sue the pediatrician and Children’s Medical Group for medical malpractice for failing to refer their daughter for a consultation to a pediatric cardiologist. The family claims that a coarctation of the aorta takes up to a week to mature in an infant and should have been apparent during their first pediatric visit, three days after the child’s birth. Plaintiff’s counsel argues at trial that the entire point of their initial pediatric visit was to look for post-birth congenial problems and by then the first warning sign, an elevated heart rate, had been observed by the nurse on duty. This observation was made by the nurse not once, but twice and on both occasions, the plaintiff’s allege the pediatrician failed to note her abnormally high heart rate. They allege that had he properly noted the heart rate and referred her to a pediatric cardiologist, an ultrasound would have revealed the heart defect and a much simpler surgery would have been conducted to correct the defect and would have prevented the cardiac arrest and brain damage. The defendants argue that the pediatrician did check the heart rate and noted them as normal during both visits.  But they were not normal!  The doctors also claim there were no signs of an elevated heart rate that would have been associated with aortic coarctation.  But the defense is grasping at straws. The case goes to trial and after a nine-day jury deliberation, the jury of 5 men and one woman found for the plaintiffs and awards $7,006,723.13.
• 2012: Car Crash Verdict for $50,000. Plaintiff is at a complete stop at an intersection in Cumberland when he is rear-ended by the Defendant driver who is operating a UPS truck. Plaintiff alleges multiple injuries, including soft-tissue injuries, bruising of his chest, as well as ongoing headaches resulting from the crash. Defendants admit liability but argue that the Plaintiff’s injuries were not caused by the crash, as Plaintiff had a history of pain management issues. The jury awards the Plaintiff $19,501.00 in past medical expenses and $30,499.00 for pain and suffering.
• 2010: Medical Negligence Verdict for $1,500,000. A patient schedules a procedure with his doctor for a cardiac catheterization procedure and surgery is then performed. After surgery, the patient’s condition deteriorates rapidly, and he is rushed back into surgery an hour later. After several revival attempts, the patient is pronounced dead, and patient’s wife and three adult children bring a wrongful death and medical malpractice suit against the doctor who performed the surgery.
  Expert testimony at trial reveals the patient died as a result of a perforated artery. Patient’s family argues the perforation was completely repairable, and if it had been noticed in time, death would not have occurred. Defendant doctor argues patient’s death was coincidence and could have been due to a number of conditions. A jury deliberates for three and a half hours and then awards the wrongful death beneficiaries $1.5 million.

• The Golden Living nursing home in Cumberland has struggled with health inspections and a recent medication error lawsuit.
• Allegany Health Nursing and Rehabilitation: a look at one of the major nursing homes in Allegany County
• An interesting lawsuit involving a hepatitis C infection at the Cumberland Correctional Institution — again, very few of these case go anywhere and this one, filed in 2016, does not appear to have made it past Health Claim Arbitration
• Another interesting medical malpractice lawsuit filed in Cumberland in 2017 that underscore what a small community it is in Allegany County.
• County’s circuit court website