Defense Verdict in Medical Malpractice Case

The firm congratulates Keith Ricker for a defense verdict in a hard-fought, high-exposure medical malpractice suit against University Medical Center Corporation, Arizona College of Medicine, and University Physicians Healthcare.

The case involved a 14-year-old boy, who, tragically, passed away after receiving a diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The boy was hospitalized in May of 2012, and discharged in June. He was re-admitted later that month, due to adverse effects from chemotherapy, and was intubated. For almost three weeks prior to his death, he received nourishment through a nasogastic tube. While the tube was being changed in response to a trickling nosebleed, the boy went into cardiac arrest, and could not be resuscitated.

An autopsy identified the cause of death as "severe epistaxis" (nosebleed) resulting in aspiration of blood. The autopsy was done by a second year resident, and signed off by a pathologist who had only done a dozen autopsies in her career. There was no history of "severe epistaxis," and no blood found in the airway or lungs, so no evidence of aspiration. An unidentified fungal infection was found in his thyroid and lung, and the child's adrenal glands had been severely damaged. 

The boy's parents' sued based on the theory that blood had built up in the patient's nasal passages, and that dislodging the tube had caused him to choke on his own blood. Plaintiff's experts posited that the child suffered respiratory arrest, not cardiac arrest; intubation should have been done sooner; and that when it was done, the endotracheal tube went into the esophagus rather than the trachea.

The defense's pathology expert testified that the fungal disease was disseminated, in the kidneys as well as the thyroid and lung. Defense pediatric infectious disease expert opined that the disease was likely in the boy's brain (which was not included in the autopsy), and that even if he had survived the Code Blue, he would have died within a week.

The overseeing physicians were initially listed as co-defendants in the plaintiff's complaint, filed in 2013. Mr. Ricker was able to have the physicians dismissed from the case, before proceeding to trial. After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated for two hours before returning a 9-2 defense verdict.

Mr. Ricker, a partner in the Phoenix office, has represented physicians at the University of Arizona in medical negligence cases since 1988.