Sayles Werbner Earns Rare Texas Supreme Court Ruling Upholding Punitive Damages Award...

Sayles Werbner Earns Rare Texas Supreme Court Ruling Upholding Punitive
Damages Award in Medical Malpractice Case

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorneys from the Dallas
litigation firm Sayles Werbner are announcing a rare Supreme Court of Texas
opinion upholding a medical malpractice award for the family of a man who died
of a heart attack after waiting 12 hours for treatment following his admission
to a hospital emergency room for chest pains.
The opinion issued by the high court on Friday in Columbia Medical Center
of Los Colinas Inc. d/b/a Las Colinas Medical Center v. Athena Hogue, et al.,
No. 04-0575, affirms an earlier appeals court holding of negligence against
Columbia Medical, as well as actual and gross negligence damages. The opinion
also reversed an award for loss of inheritance damages.
Attorneys from Sayles Werbner represented the wife and family of Robert
Hogue Jr. in the trial heard in Dallas state district court in 2001. Mr. Hogue
died in 1998 after waiting hours for treatment at the Las Colinas Medical
Center near Dallas. Jurors awarded $9.2 million in compensatory damages and
$21 million in actual damages after the Sayles Werbner team presented evidence
that Mr. Hogue's treatment was delayed because of poor hospital policies and
lack of staffing.
The 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas reduced the total award to
approximately $5.4 million in 2004 based on existing Texas laws limiting
damage awards in health care claims. The case had been pending at the Supreme
Court of Texas since the appeals court ruling.
Mr. Hogue's son, Christopher Hogue, was a first-year law student at Texas
Tech University School of Law when the jury verdict was returned. He now works
as an attorney at Sayles Werbner.
"We are extremely pleased to finally have this case resolved through this
just, but infrequent affirmance of punitive damages," says attorney Mark
Werbner, co-founder of Sayles Werbner and trial counsel for the Hogue family.
"This opinion is especially gratifying because the Hogues have had to wait so
long for the court to rule. The Supreme Court of Texas is known far and wide
for reversing court judgments favoring plaintiffs, particularly in medical
malpractice cases, and it is important that this decision is perhaps putting a
halt to that trend."
Under the court's ruling, defendant Columbia Medical must pay the Hogue
family approximately $10 million when the amount of pre- and post-judgment
interest is included with the $5.4 million award of actual and punitive
damages.
Sayles Werbner has an international reputation as a "go to" trial law firm
in multifaceted business litigation, intellectual property, life-altering
personal injury cases, product safety lawsuits and other areas of the law.
More information about the firm can be found at http://www.swtriallaw.com.
For more information on the Supreme Court ruling, please contact Bruce
Vincent at 214.559.4630 or bruce@androvett.com.
SOURCE Sayles Werbner

Bruce Vincent, +1-214-559-4630, bruce@androvett.com, for Sayles Werbner