Stock image. 

Viera, FL—Attorneys battled Friday over whether nicotine addiction and a conspiracy to hide smoking’s dangers caused a Florida man’s lung cancer death as trial opened against R.J. Reynolds. Morse v. R.J. Reynolds, 2008-CA-006848.

Medical center guidelines often form the central legal battleground in cases against hospitals. The defense will use compliance with the guidelines as proof that treatment met appropriate standards, while the plaintiff must show the hospital violated its own protocol or those guidelines didn’t apply. In 2017, Gordon & Doner's Scott Fischer secured a nearly $1 million verdict in a patient fall trial with a closing that hammered the hospital's safety protocol. Harrison v. West Boca Medical Center.

As part of our continuing commitment to legal insight, education, and analysis, CVN is proud to partner with American Medical Forensic Specialists (AMFS), the nation's premier expert witness and medical-legal consultant network, to provide exclusive analyses of medical expert witnesses from high-stakes trials around the country.

As part of its new partnership with American Medical Forensic Specialists, Dr. Gary Gansar analyzes testimony from Dr. Katharine Wenstrom, an expert on obstetrics, whose opinion played a key role in a nearly $46 million verdict for the family of a mother who suffered catastrophic brain damage in a post-partum collapse. The full analysis can be found at the AMFS site. You can watch extended video, along with the analysis, on CVN Essentials.

The destruction of key evidence can kneecap a plaintiff’s case, regardless of any adverse inference instruction a judge may give. In 2017's Fournier v. Derazi trial, however, Mark Avera overcame the destruction of vital evidence to win a seven-figure verdict for a college student injured in a fall from a house deck.