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Marietta, GA— Jurors Wednesday cleared a Georgia emergency room physician of responsibility for the catastrophic fallout from a brain-stem stroke that one of her patients suffered. Barnett v. Johnson, M.D., et al., 23-A-526.
The Cobb County (Georgia) State Court jury’s decision capped a seven-day trial over the February 2013 stroke Jennifer Barnett suffered, which has left her with a range of disabilities and needing assistance to perform daily activities. Jurors concluded Dr. Richisa Hamilton-Salazar was not grossly negligent in her emergency treatment of Barnett after she arrived in the Atlanta Medical Center’s ER, complaining of numbness, weakness, and confusion, among other symptoms that could be associated with a stroke.
The trial turned in large part on Hamilton-Salazar’s workup of Barnett after her arrival in the hospital. During Wednesday’s closings, Barnett’s attorney, the Bell Law Firm’s Lloyd Bell, detailed evidence he said showed Hamilton-Salazar violated the standard of care by failing to take a proper medical history of Barnett and failing to order a neurologic consult on the case, despite Barnett showing multiple symptoms of an ongoing stroke.
“Dr. [Hamilton-Salazar] does not consult a neurologist. And since she doesn’t get a neurologist on board, [Barnett’s] stroke is undiagnosed and goes untreated while the window of opportunity shuts,” Bell said, before requesting roughly $176 million in damages. “The window of opportunity closes for treatment options and this clot — this blockage of the pipe in her brain — blocks the blood flow and causes catastrophic brain damage.”
But the defense pushed back on the claim that Hamilton-Salazar did not order a neurologic consultation and contended the doctor provided appropriate care when Barnett arrived in the ER.
During Wednesday’s closings, Hall Booth Smith’s John Hall walked jurors through jurors through the timeline of Hamilton-Salazar’s treatment of Barnett, whom he described as suffering from symptoms that could have been caused by a variety of issues. Hall said Hamilton-Salazar consulted with a neurologist and ordered imaging, working through a differential diagnosis that considered stroke among a range of possible causes, but that a radiologist, who was not a defendant at trial, misread Barnett’s imaging.
“She was on the right track and, but for [the radiologist] violating the standard of care by mis-reading that x-ray, would have been down a different path,” Hall said. “She was appropriate and we believe worked diligently in taking care of Ms. Barnett, and she did meet the standard of care as she went forward.”
In an emailed statement after the verdict, Bell wrote that the trial proceeded against the ER physician alone after Barnett settled with other healthcare providers across years of litigation. Bell added that he believed the burden of proof and standard of care applicable after jurors concluded that Hamilton-Salazar provided emergency treatment to Barnett, played a decisive role in the verdict.
"This was a hard-fought case that spanned many years before finally going to trial. Although we had settled with the other defendants prior to trial, we were not able to reach a settlement with the last remaining defendant, the ER physician. In Georgia, ER physicians get the benefit of a higher standard of proof, where a plaintiff has to prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the doctor was grossly negligent. This proved to be too a high a hurdle to overcome," Bell wrote. "But Jennifer is incredibly brave and resilient, and like every other aspect of her injury and recovery, she received the disappointing verdict with grace and dignity.
"We will be filing an appeal."
CVN has reached out to John Hall and will update this article with his comments.
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
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Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.