CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Sean Claggett showing a computerized recreation of the procedure during his closing argument
Portland, OR - An Oregon state court jury returned a roughly $25 million verdict on Friday in a medical malpractice lawsuit accusing staff at an outpatient surgical facility of failing to react to a patient’s crashing vital signs during a routine colonoscopy, and the full trial was recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
The Multnomah County jury reached their verdict the day after hearing closing arguments in a trial that began July 31. The family of decedent Erric Gilbert alleged that staff at The Portland Clinic botched their resuscitation efforts after he went into respiratory arrest during the procedure, but attorneys for the clinic argued the blame should be placed entirely on an anesthesiologist who settled out of the case and surrendered his medical license over the incident.
Attorney Sean Claggett of Claggett & Sykes, who represented the plaintiffs, told CVN after the trial the jury’s award far surpasses the clinic’s highest settlement offer of $500,000 along with his eventual policy limit settlement demand of $3 million. The full trial, including all witness testimony, is available for unlimited on-demand viewing as part of a CVN video library subscription, along with hundreds of other civil trials from throughout the United States.
The jury assigned 60 percent liability to anesthesiologist David Stellway and 40 percent to the Portland Clinic while also clearing gastroenterologist Young Choi, who performed the colonoscopy, of any individual responsibility for Gilbert’s death. That reduces the collectible portion of the verdict to roughly $10 million, though that amount could be reduced further by a $500,000 wrongful death cap in Oregon that is currently being challenged as unconstitutional.
Claggett argued to jurors during the trial that Gilbert’s weight and sleep apnea should have prompted his colonoscopy to be carried out in a hospital setting, and that Dr. Choi should have immediately halted the procedure after Gilbert stopped breathing and Dr. Stellway began “bagging” the patient to provide artificial respiration.
According to Claggett it was only after a surgical technician realized the severity of the situation that a code blue was initiated, summoning a nearby EMS team, but by then Gilbert had suffered irreversible brain damage and was taken off life support a few days later. Attorneys for the clinic maintained Choi specifically asked Stellman if he should continue the procedure and reasonably relied on the anesthesiologist’s advice when he was advised to proceed.
Claggett told CVN the jury’s verdict was largely driven by their reaction to testimony showing the clinic was unprepared to handle an emergency resuscitation, including from the defense’s own expert witnesses.
“The critical testimony was that of the defense experts admitting that there was absolutely no training at the Portland Clinic on how to deal with emergency response,” Claggett said. “We were able to prove our case through their experts. We were surprised with the defense strategy to call so many experts, as each of their experts gave us a breach of the standard of care by the defendants.”
An attorney for the clinic did not respond to a request for comment from CVN.
Claggett explained that while the clinic’s strategy rested on pinning 100 percent of the blame on Dr. Stellway, his pre-trial focus grouping, which Claggett has systemized into a data-driven process he calls “Jury Ball” and describes in a recently published book by the same name, indicated otherwise.
“We knew they would never get that to happen as the Jury Ball data told us that the anesthesiologist would take an average of 57 percent liability (at trial he took 60),” Claggett said. “Our goal was to come within the Jury Ball data range which came within 3 percent of the predicted liability. There is no doubt that our clients' decision to settle with the anesthesiologist created a big empty chair but not one that we could not overcome."
Claggett noted the overall verdict itself also came as no surprise to his team.
“This verdict was predicted by our Jury Ball data we ran,” he said. “When the verdict came back I was not surprised in the slightest, as our actual jury did almost exactly what our data told us they would do. Trials and juries are so predictable, that we rarely are surprised by a jury verdict.”
Claggett expressed hope the verdict sends a message to healthcare providers that they need to be prepared for emergency resuscitations in any setting where general anesthesia is administered.
“Ambulatory surgery centers are becoming more and more used in today's medicine,” he said. “We are hopeful that all surgical centers take note of this verdict and improve their team training with emergency response. The Portland Clinic is the poster child for systemic failures in American medicine. We sincerely hope they change their business practices.”
Claggett’s team also included David Creasy, Geordan Logan, Marc Johnston and Aaron Tillman of Claggett & Sykes.
The the clinic (insured by The Doctors Company) was represented by Lewis Brisbois.
The case is captioned The Estate of Erric Edward Gilbert vs The Portland Clinic, et al. case number 21CV18955.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com