A jury’s award of $45 million against Temple University Hospital was illogical and exorbitant, a Philadelphia judge ruled…law.com, Judge Orders New Trial in $45M Med Mal Case Against Temple Hospital, Aleeza Furman, Dec 2024
Plaintiff Dylan Hernandez claimed that he sustained neurological damage choking on food because Temple University Hospital prematurely discharged him from treatment for a gunshot wound to the neck. But Temple Health asserted that Hernandez choked because he had been eating solid foods despite discharge orders instructing him not to.
The jury found that both the plaintiff and Temple Health were negligent, but that only Temple Health’s negligence was a factual cause of the plaintiff’s harm. The August verdict consisted of $39.1 million for past and future medical expenses, plus approximately $2.3 million for loss of earnings and $3.5 million for noneconomic damages.
But Temple Health contended in a posttrial motion that the jury contradicted its own findings by determining Hernandez’s negligence was not a cause of his injuries.
The case had involved a factual dispute over what Hernandez had been eating when he choked, with the defendants claiming Hernandez had been eating chicken and the plaintiffs claiming he had been eating mashed potatoes.
Setting aside the verdict, Judge Hill ruled that, regardless of which food the jurors believed Hernandez ate, the jury could only have found the plaintiff negligent if it believed he violated his discharge orders, as that was the only theory of the plaintiff’s negligence proposed by the defense. And if Hernandez had eaten solid food, he must have been at least somewhat liable for his injuries, the judge held.
Hill noted that the jury’s award surpassed both of the expert’s estimates combined but was allotted based on a lower life expectancy than the one calculated by the plaintiff’s expert. Hill ruled that a new trial was the only way to correct the issues with the jury’s verdict.