Dwyer v. Harborview Nursing Home
May 14, 2014OUTCOME: Verdict: $13,200,000
Co‑counsel on trial team generating the largest nursing home verdict in New Jersey history, Dwyer v. Harborview – in the amount of 13.2 million dollars. After hearing 7 weeks of evidence and w ... itnesses, which included photographs of stage IV pressure ulcers (bedsores), evidence of lethal levels of nutritional deprivation, plaintiff’s contentions of falsifications in the medical record and plaintiff’s contentions of inadequate staffing and care, the jury returned with the largest verdict in Hudson County history. Immediately following the verdict, numerous post-verdict filings were made by both the plaintiff and the defense. Over one year after the verdict, the trial judge determined that it had given improper instructions to the jury, as a consequence of the opinions expressed in the text of an unrelated decision released on a different case (that had not been released until nearly a year after this verdict). However, the content of the instructions at issue in Dwyer were agreed upon by Plaintiff, the defense and the Court itself. The Court ordered the parties to re-try the case. Soon, the case found its way before the Appellate Division (a higher-level court), with Plaintiff’s contention that the trial court’s instructions were proper, were wholly in line with the as-yet unreleased and unrelated decision and were unassailable by virtue of the fact that they were acceded to by the defense. For those reasons, Plaintiff’s filing with the Appellate Division demanded that the $13,200,00 verdict remain intact. While that issue was pending in the appellate court, the case resolved confidentially for an undisclosed sum. The verdict was the subject of an intense two-day attorney instructional seminar in Washington, DC, co-chaired by Cohen, numerous local and national articles, received coverage on the front page of the New York Times and remains the largest nursing home verdict in New Jersey History.
