Lisa Zenzen Baker, 1961-2003

E-mail: answersforlisa@hotmail.com

Thursday, January 08, 2015

An invitation


Facebook community page 

In the first seven days of this year, just over 5,000 visits have been logged on this blog.  Many of those hits have come via a community page on Facebook.

This is an invitation for you to log on to that page.

Once there, you can leave a comment, as many people have done on the story below about the newborn allegedly injured at the Burdett Care Center in Troy.  You can share post links on your own Facebook page - as 30 people did during the past week on the baby story.  And you can join the page, so that it appears on the left side of your own Facebook page when you are logged in.

Here's the page link:

https://www.facebook.com/capitaldistricthealthclaims

Twitter: @answersforlisa
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Thursday, January 01, 2015

Long labor leads to claim


Nurses, Burdett Care Center face
suit alleging injuries to newborn


Lawsuit alleges baby was "near death"
after mother was in labor for 17 hours 
 
By David Baker
Posted Thursday Jan. 1, 2015
413 words


The parents of a baby who allegedly received a permanent brain injury after four nurses allegedly failed to see that he was in distress during a long labor have filed a lawsuit against the nurses and the Burdett Care Center, a maternity facility located within Samaritan Hospital in Troy, N.Y.

According to legal papers, Lisette Maldonado of Troy went into labor on August 4, 2012 and was admitted to the care center at just after 4 a.m.

The suit says that the four nurses – Kathleen Breault, Amy Vincent, Jeanmarie Rodino and Kim-Lorraine Reed Bouchard – “…failed to address signs of fetal distress and permitted labor to continue, administered medications to induce labor and failed to seek medical assistance or take steps to have the baby delivered by cesarean section despite the need to do so.”

After Maldonado had been in labor for 17 hours, the baby was delivered by cesarean section. By then according to the complaint, he had received permanent injuries.

“The prolonged and extreme fetal distress suffered by the baby prior to the time of his birth placed him at risk of significant injury and harm, requiring that emergent steps be taken including delivery by cesarean section to alleviate,” the complaint says. “…[H]e was by then and there in extreme distress, had aspirated meconium, [the baby’s own accumulated waste], suffered respiratory failure, hypoxemia, was suffering acute excruciating mental and physical agony and pain and was near death.”

As a result, the suit says, the baby “…suffered trauma to his body systems, suffered mental and physical  pain suffered anguish anxiety and brain damage.”

The suit also names Capital Region Midwifery, by which Breault, a certified nurse midwife, was employed. Capital Region Midwifery was founded in 2012 with offices in Albany, Latham and Troy and has admitting privileges at the Burdett Care Center and at Ellis Healthcare in Schenectady, according to its web page. 

The suit seek an unspecified amount in damages for what it says will be the considerable resources needed to treat the child’s condition, and for his pain, as well as compensation for both parents’ anguish.

The suit was filed in October 2013  by the Albany law firm DeGraff, Foy & Kunz.

The defendants are represented by Carter, Conboy, Case, Blackmore Maloney & Laird; and O’Connor, O’Connor, Bresee & First. In early 2014 the defendant Kathleen Breault, an employee of Capital Region Midwifery, signed a consent to change attorneys from Carter, Conboy to Napierski, Vandenburgh, Napierski & O’Connor.

A search of the area’s newspaper archives produced no indication that details of the case have been published.
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RELATED STORY:
Burdett Care Center faces harassment suit.

Documents filed


Two lawsuits move along

By David Baker
Posted Thursday Jan 1, 2015
375 words


As a new year starts, here is an update on two lawsuits, details of which have previously been published on this blog.

Patricia Cocozzo vs. Northeast Health


Details of this case were published in an exclusive story here in June 2014. Patricia Cocozzo alleges that she was sexual harassed while working in the emergency department at Samaritan Hospital, and that she was ridiculed because of her hearing impairment. She also alleges retaliation for complaining about the harassment, which allegedly involved in part a male employee showing her a video of himself having sex with another woman.  The suit claims violations of several sections of New York’s Human Rights Law.

At the time the first story appeared here nothing had been filed by attorneys for the defendants. Since then, a law firm in White Plains, N.Y., Jackson Lewis, has filed a response. This document, known as an answer, contains little of substance; it merely routinely denies all the allegations and then lists a set of standard “affirmative defenses”; that the claim is barred by the statue of limitations (they all say that, even when it clearly isn’t); that Cocozzo “…failed to make diligent and good faith efforts to mitigate her damages”; and also a novel defense: that Cocozzo’s claim is barred by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Law; i.e., that any perceived harassment was a workplace accident, claims for which cannot be brought in civil courts.

The first story on Cocozzo's claim is HERE

Estate of Tara Palmer vs. James Slavin, M.D. and Samaritan Hospital

In this case, it is alleged that Tara Palmer was advised by the defendant James Slavin that it was safe to fly following an operation on an ankle. The next day Palmer collapsed and died in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport en route to Boise, Idaho.  She was 31.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the estate by Palmer’s mother, Cheryl Maille, who lives in Boise. The date of the filing was November 2011 but there was no further activity in the public record until June 2014. In August, state Supreme Court Justice Patrick J. McGrath issued a scheduling order. A preliminary conference is set for March 2015.

The estate is represented by the Albany law  firm O’Connell & Aronowitz. Representing the defendants are Carter, Conboy, Case, Blackmore, Maloney & Laird, and Thorn, Gershon Tymann & Bonanni.

The first story on the Palmer lawsuit is HERE

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