$1 Million Fee Award Made to Two Law Firms Representing Med Mal Plaintiff.
Sweet Violet cigarettes. Globe Tobacco Co. 1886. Library of Congress.
According to an article in a recent on-line version of the ABA Journal, a Pennsylvania judge has ordered a Pennsylvania defense attorney to pay $1 million in fees back to two law firms prosecuting a medical malpractice claim on behalf of a plaintiff. The sanctions were imposed against the defense attorney for allegedly allowing an expert to refer to a lung cancer patient’s history of smoking in a first trial, which resulted in a mistrial—with the attorney claiming she instructed the expert not to reference smoking in the trial. In the second trial, the plaintiff eventually won a $2 million verdict. The defense attorney has vowed to appeal, has demanded an investigation into the sanctioning judge, and has indicated she might sue the two firms that were the beneficiaries of the fee sanction order.