Stroke victim challenges laws around emergency room malpractice

By Bill Rankin


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Emergency room physicians must often make rapid-fire, life-or-death decisions in a chaotic environment without the benefit of knowing the medical histories of their patients.

The Georgia Supreme Court’s justices were reminded of that Tuesday by lawyers defending a key provision of the state’s 2005 tort reform law. It requires a plaintiff to establish that an ER doctor committed “gross negligence” — an almost insurmountable legal threshold to clear — in order to prove medical malpractice.

With emergency room doctors facing an increased threat of malpractice suits, the Legislature sought to make sure Georgia could still attract the best physicians into the state’s ER rooms, Wade Copeland, a lawyer representing a Muscogee County doctor, told the court.

“Common sense tells us this statute will have that effect,” Copeland said.

But Atlanta lawyer Michael Terry said lawmakers carved out a radical exception to certain medical corporations and insurance companies that extensively lobbied for a special, private benefit at the expense of those injured by medical negligence.

“It’s the practical elimination of any [medical malpractice] claims,” Terry told the justices. The provision gives hospitals and ER physicians “an unconscionable and inequitable advantage.”

The case heard Tuesday by the state high court is the latest challenge to the state’s sweeping tort reform law. Last month, the justices heard a challenge to the cap on damage awards in all medical malpractice cases.

Tuesday’s arguments involves a pre-trial appeal pursued by Carol Gliemmo, who went to the emergency room at St. Francis Hospital in Columbus on April 22, 2007, after experiencing a sudden snapping in her head and a throbbing behind her eye.

From this point on, what treatment Gliemmo, 56, received and how she felt when she left is greatly disputed.

Gliemmo’s lawyers say that, instead of giving their client a CAT scan, the ER doctor blamed her headache on high stress, prescribed Valium and sent her home. Gliemmo screamed in pain as she was leaving, her lawyers say.

She ultimately suffered a stroke and now suffers from paralysis and neurological damage.

In a recent telephone interview, Copeland defended ER physician Mark Cousineau’s care. Cousineau prescribed a low dose of medication for Gliemmo’s high blood pressure and Valium for her stress, the lawyer said. Before the patient was discharged, nurses reported back on three occasions that Gliemmo was feeling better and she thanked him when leaving, Copeland said.