Medical Malpractice - Failure to Diagnose Prostate Cancer
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OUTCOME: $1,500,000 Settlement
Ronald Goldfaden represented a man, now 64 years old, in a claim against his general practitioner who failed to take action after three abnormal prostate-specific-antigen (PSA) test readings of 5.95 i...n October 2004, 5.33 in August 2005 and 7.03 in March 2006. Readings above 4 require further action, but the defendant doctor told our client that the results were normal for a man of his age. Our client later had a biopsy at the urging of his son, a urologist, which diagnosed the cancer, and led to the removal of our client's prostate. Unfortunately, because of the delay, the cancer had spread to the seminal vesicles, and the man's 15-year survival rate dropped from 90 percent to 60 percent.
Car accident
Motor Vehicle Accident/Police Chase – Injures 3 Pedestrians
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OUTCOME: $3.9 Million Settlement
A settlement totaling 3.9 million dollars has been reached on behalf of three teenagers who were injured when they were struck by a stolen vehicle that was eluding a police pursuit. The accident occurr...ed on July 19, 2001 on 6th Street and 12th Avenue in Newark, New Jersey. The driver of the stolen vehicle is currently serving time in prison after pleading guilty to eluding, aggravated manslaughter and receiving stolen property. Although the settlement agreement denies any admission of liability on the part of the City, the plaintiffs alleged that officers pursued the stolen vehicle in violation of N.J. Attorney General Guidelines, and after receiving a direct order from a supervisor not to pursue the vehicle. The City of Newark contended that there never was any police pursuit, and that the officers were simply following the stolen vehicle as it sped through the streets. The driver of the stolen vehicle ultimately lost control and collided with the three 17 year old friends as they conversed on the sidewalk. Two of the teens suffered broken legs which healed, but one of our clients was rendered a quadriplegic. The policy limit of $300,000 was paid by the insurer on behalf of the driver and owner of the stolen vehicle after Blume Goldfaden attorneys uncovered circumstantial evidence suggesting that the owner conspired to have his vehicle "stolen" before it was to be repossessed. The balance of the settlement was paid by the City of Newark. Blume Goldfaden Principal Ronald P. Goldfaden and Partner Mitchell J. Makowicz secured this 3.9 million dollar settlement.
Motorcycle accident
Motorcyclist Killed in Crash
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OUTCOME: $1.189 Million Settlement
Partner Ronald P. Goldfaden secured this settlement for the wife and 20-year-old son of a motorcyclist killed in a collision. The wrongful death case was venued in Ocean County. The accident occurred... on June 12, 2004, on Route 528 West in Plumstead, where the decedent was riding with a group of New Jersey Leatherneck bikers to raise money for the widow and children of a soldier killed in Iraq. An eastbound pickup truck with a 15-foot trailer jackknifed as traffic ahead of it came to a stop. The trailer rolled onto the motorcyclist, killing him.
Brain injury
Jury Verdict For Brain Damaged Child
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OUTCOME: $9.6 Million Jury Verdict
A Passaic County jury returned a verdict totaling $9.6 Million for a child who was born with severe brain damage as a result of a lack of oxygen.
The jury found that the certified nurse midwife and ...the obstetrician who were monitoring the fetal heart strips, failed to recognize that the baby's fetal heart rate was dangerously low and failed to perform a timely cesarean section delivery. As a result of the delay, the child will never walk or talk or be able to attend a regular school. He will need 24 hour care for the rest of his life.
Blume Goldfaden attorneys, Ron Goldfaden and Mitch Makowicz, tried the matter on behalf of the child and her family.
Personal injury
Injured Pedestrian Settles Suit for $1.5 Million
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OUTCOME: $1.5 Million Settlement
A woman struck by a vehicle while crossing a Newark street agreed to accept $1.5 million for injuries that left her unable to continue to work as a schoolteacher.
The 56 year old client, represented... by partner, Ron Goldfaden, was hit by a pickup truck while crossing Mulberry Street on Jan. 11, 2001. The impact fractured her pelvis, sacrum, left clavicle, left scapula, fifth lumbar vertebra and several ribs and caused degloving of part of her light thigh. The woman returned to her teaching job in September 2001 but gave it up in March 2003 because of chronic pain. The client continues to suffer pain in her lower back and left shoulder that forced her to give up jogging and working out at the gym.
Wrongful death
$4.625 Million Wrongful Death Settlement
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OUTCOME: $4.625 Million Settlement
In one of the largest wrongful death settlements in state history, the family of a Jersey City psychiatrist has settled their lawsuit for Four Million Six Hundred Twenty-five Thousand Dollars ($4,625,0...00) against Meadowlands Hospital and a number of physicians. The client was a 39 year old psychiatrist with a wife and two daughters aged 11 and 13 when he entered Meadowlands Hospital for laparoscopic gallbladder surgery on July 31, 1998. The surgery, known as a laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a procedure in which a small opening is made near the belly button and the gallbladder is removed with tools and a camera inserted into the small opening. It is much less invasive than an open gallbladder removal and usually allows patients to return home and to work within a day or two.
During the surgery, the defendant's small bowel was perforated by either an instrument or the electrocautery device. As a result of this perforation, the food being fed to leaked out into his abdomen causing severe infection and sepsis.
A number of physicians and specialists treated the client over the nine days he was at Meadowlands Hospital without accurately diagnosing his problem or doing exploratory surgery to find the perforation. This occurred despite a progressively worsening condition which included severe abdominal pain, nausea, fever, a distended abdomen, vomiting and ultimately hallucinations. The decedent's test results including white blood counts, x-rays, and CT Scans also were consistent with the abscess caused by the bowel perforation.
Nine days after his surgery, the patient was finally transferred to UMDNJ (who was not a defendant in this case) where he was immediately brought into surgery and doctors removed 2.7 liters of pus from his belly. Unfortunately, by then, all of the patient's organs were infected and his body went into septic shock. There was no way for him to survive. The Del Rio family was represented by Ronald P. Goldfaden of Chatham, New Jersey and Jonathan T. Colby from Miami, Florida.
