The state Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a case in which a principal juror was inexplicably replaced with an alternate juror by a court officer prior to deliberations in a medical malpractice trial with no notice to the attorneys or the judge, a situation one justice called “outrageous.”
In Bruckshaw v. Frankford Hospital , a 12-member jury handed down a 10-2 verdict in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Joseph I. Papalini’s courtroom, clearing defendants Dr. Randy K. Metcalf and Dr. Brian P. Priest, as well as the Frankford Hospital, Torresdale Division in Philadelphia, of allegations that they were responsible for the death of 47-year-old plaintiff Patricia Bruckshaw, who died following heart surgery.
