Lloyd
& Cavanagh has handled a wide array of cases involving
negligent medical care and treatment of patients. Partner
Kurt D. Lloyd was one of the first attorneys in Illinois
to prosecute an HMO insurance company and its physicians
and nurses for personal injury to a patient. Mr. Lloyd’s
work has brought about changes in the systems used in managed
care health plans for the delivery of medical care and treatment
to member patients, including the adequate management of
a mother’s pregnancy and delivery of the infant, referral
to specialists for high risk conditions, and the proper
testing of medical conditions, such as breast mammography
and biopsies for the early detection of breast cancer.
For
example, in l995 Mr. Lloyd won a 9.7
million dollar jury verdict against an HMO physician
for obstetrical negligence which brain damaged a child,
the first Illinois case to hold a physician liable for the
patient’s complete obstetrical care under a managed care
insurance plan.
In
l998, Mr. Lloyd represented a six-year-old child whose mother,
a twenty-year-old single woman, died of an infection caused
by negligent obstetrical care, specifically the early discharge
of a mother from the hospital after delivery. Mr. Lloyd
recovered a 2.45 million dollar settlement against the obstetrician
and the hospital for this orphaned child.
Similarly,
in l999 Mr. Lloyd obtained a 4.2 million
dollar settlement against a major managed care health
provider for the failure of one of its staff physicians
to order the diagnostic tests necessary to detect a ruptured
aneurysm in the patient’s brain. The plaintiff, a 41-year-old
married, schoolteacher who suffered a stroke and resulting
partial right-sided paralysis, received the highest settlement
ever reached for the delay in diagnosis of a ruptured cerebral
aneurysm.
In
1994, partner Tim Cavanagh obtained a jury verdict against
several physicians for failing to diagnose a perforated
colon that caused the death of a woman. The case was resolved
for 2.0 million dollars.
In
past ten years, Mr. Lloyd has obtained a
number of settlements on behalf of women and their families
from the devastating effects of a delay in diagnosis of
breast cancer. These cases have ranged from the failure
to order mammograms to the misinterpretation of mammograms
performed, or the failure to do a breast biopsy to the failure
to perform the proper breast biopsy technique.
Finally,
Mr. Lloyd has represented numerous
plaintiffs who were injured or killed by physicians
in medical and surgical specialties, such as radiology,
surgery and vascular surgery, cardiology, dermatology, gynecology,
anesthesia, orthopedics and internal medicine.
