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Widower Wins $6 Million in Med-Mal Trial
Fulton County Daily Report
November 13, 2009
The husband and estate of a woman who developed blood clots and died shortly after undergoing outpatient knee surgery have been awarded more than $6 million.
In December of 2003, Ruby Nicole Quarles, 42, was referred by her primary care physician at Fort Benning's Martin Army Community Hospital to an orthopedic surgeon to investigate complaints of worsening pain in her left knee, according to trial documents.
The surgeon, Dr. Colin S. McKenzie, gave Quarles an injection for the pain and ordered physical therapy; during a follow-up visit in January 2004, McKenzie ordered an MRI to determine whether Quarles might have a tear in the cartilage of her knee.
The MRI indicated a "cartilaginous loose body" behind Quarles' knee, according to the pre-trial order, and on Jan. 29 she underwent less than an hour of arthroscopic surgery at Doctors Hospital. McKenzie did not find any loose cartilage or other damage, and that afternoon Quarles' daughter, Frances, took her home.
Frances Quarles came by the next morning to check on her mother and get her little sister off to school; when she returned about lunch time, she found her mother dead on the bathroom floor.
An autopsy showed that deep venous thromboids had formed at the site of the surgery, said the order, and traveled to the lung causing a pulmonary embolism.
The case was "gut-wrenching," said Jason B. Branch of Columbus, Ga.'s Philips Branch, who filed a suit in 2006 on behalf of Quarles' widower, Farris Quarles, alleging medical malpractice against McKenzie and his employer, Chattahoochee Valley Bone and Joint Inc.
"The Quarles family was as solid and good-hearted as a family could be," said Branch. The couple had met in the Army, and Ruby Quarles had retired some years earlier, he said; her husband had recently retired after 26 years in the Army and was in Japan training for a civilian job at a military exchange at Fort Benning when his wife died.
"He had just retired, they were excited," said Branch. "They were about to start what they'd always planned to do with the rest of their lives, and he asked her to put up with one more trip abroad. He was scheduled to come home two weeks after her knee surgery."
In trial documents and an interview Branch said that McKenzie ignored several risk factors that should have indicated that blood clotting could be a problem: the patient was somewhat obese and was taking birth control pills; she also had a personal history of asthma and hypertension and a family history of heart disease and stroke.
"The doctor did not appreciate those risk factors as risk factors," said Branch. "He treated her like a 25-year-old athlete."
During the course of a one-week trial before Muscogee County Superior Court Judge Robert G. Johnston III, Branch, law partner Ben B. Philips and Columbus attorney Neal H. Howard said McKenzie did not observe post-surgery precautions that could have prevented the formation of the blood clots.
Defense attorneys Jonathan C. Peters and Jeff P. Shiver of Peters & Monyak countered that the type of surgery Ruby Quarles underwent did not normally require any such precautions.
"The risk of a fatal pulmonary embolism in connection with an arthroscopy is extremely low," reads a defense pleading in the pre-trial order. "While there are procedures that, when performed, must be accompanied by measures to prevent clot formation, a routine arthroscopy is not one of them."
On Oct. 20, after three-and-a-half hours of deliberations, the jury awarded Quarles $6,000,001. Per O.C.G.A. §51-12-14, the judge added $471,575 as interest on the plaintiffs' settlement demand of $2 million, which was rejected by the defense.
There will likely be an appeal or some other form of challenge to the verdict, said Peters.
"We're exploring all of our options," he said, suggesting that a very sympathetic plaintiff and a client who "did not perform on the stand as well as we had hoped" led to the jury's decision.
"It would be an understatement to say our case didn't resonate with the jury," he said. "The plaintiff was a good, respectable man, and his wife seemed like a delightful woman. ... We felt the evidence would have supported a defense verdict, but that didn't happen."
Philips, asked to explain the extra $1 tacked onto the judgment, said that he had not spoken to jurors about it, but "the inference I drew was that I asked for $6 million, but said, 'If you think her life was worth more, you can award more.' I think what they did was let us know that they thought her life was worth more."
The case is Quarles v. McKenzie, No. SU06CV264-8.
