ORTIZ v. LIFEPOINT HEALTH, INC.

State of New Mexico, County of Santa Fe, First Judicial District Court

CASE NO.: D-101-CV-2020-01561

Case involved a vacuum extraction, shoulder dystocia, and fetal demise of LGA infant with multiple skull fractures on autopsy and an informed consent claim for removal of mother’s left ovary during eventual c-section. Plaintiff did not timely exhaust administrative remedies against OB and midwife so they were not apart of the trial. We represented the parent company, Lifepoint Health, Inc., the subsidiary hospital support center was represented by CJ Gideon out of Nashville, Joe Farchione and Wheeler Trigg out of Denver had the hospital. Plaintiffs were represented by Senator Joe Cervantes (chair of the NM judiciary committee).

Defense verdict on all claims against our client and hospital support center. The case was cast as profits over patients, the evils of for-profit medicine, and Plaintiff spent most of their proof on the $11 billion in Lifepoint assets that did not provide an OB physically present in the hospital when this infant needed one.

In closing, Plaintiff asked for $65 million in compensatory damages and suggested another $80 million in punitives and asked the jury to apportion almost all fault to the corporate defendants. (In New Mexico, they don’t have to give this number at all, we first heard it in closing, and still the jury is not limited by it!)

Ultimately the jury did find negligence on behalf of the non-party, OB, and the hospital for a total of $15.5 million in compensatories, NO punitives awarded. This amount will be reduced because the hospital has already been found to be a qualified provider and subject to the cap. In the end, it will be only a $2.1 million verdict for the Plaintiff.

The claims against our client were not subject to the cap and prevailing on the joint venture claim also meant that Plaintiff could not avoid the cap.