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Most Effective Lawyers: Medical Malpractice Finalist
In six months lawyer won two multimillion-dollar awards
He won a $14.5 million jury award for an optometrist
who was injured in 2002 and a $4 million jury award for the mother
of twin girls. One was dead at birth in 1997, and the other suffered
debilitating injuries.
“In these older cases, the biggest challenge
is always the volume of discovery,” Johnstone said. “I
have thousands of pages to sort through when I come into them, and
then I have to go back, figure out what I don’t have and go
after that.”
Figuring out the medicine is tough too, he said.
In the case of Francis Ziadie, Johnstone learned all
about strokes, brain damage and heart surgery.
Ziadie, 48 years old at the time, was an optometrist
in Hollywood who went to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood
in 2002 complaining of dizziness and slurred speech. Doctors determined
he had suffered a mini-stroke, which often heals itself in three
to six months, Johnstone said.
But Dr. Hoang Dinh Duong of Radiology Associates of
Hollywood recommended inserting an arterial stent and punctured
the arterial wall during surgery, Johnstone told jurors. Ziadie’s
bleeding went unnoticed for hours and caused severe brain damage.
“They offered $2 million, and we said no way,
and then the jury came back with $14.5 million,” Johnstone
said.
The jury held Duong and another doctor who had settled
liable after a month-long trial in September before Broward Circuit
Judge Charles Greene. Another member of the surgical team, Dr. David
Feldbaum, was cleared of liability.
Colleague Valerie Conzo was Johnstone’s co-counsel.
Duong was represented by Bunnell Woulfe attorneys
Robert Berman and John Campbell.
Feldbaum was represented by Jay Chimpoulis and Amy
Talisman of Chimpoulis & Hunter in Davie.
Ziadie, now 53, is paralyzed, incontinent and has
speech problems.
“He testified at trial,” Johnstone said.
“Haltingly and slowly, but he testified.”
Post-trial motions are scheduled to be heard this
month.
In the case of the twin girls tried last February
and March, a Palm Beach Circuit Court jury awarded the mother $4
million after deliberating two days, holding Good Samaritan Hospital
responsible.
“This was two cases in one because it involved
identical twins,” Johnstone said. “Jordan was born alive
with brain damage, but her sister had died five or six days before
the birth.”
Mother Stephanie Brown was in the hospital for a month
and in a high-risk unit hooked up to a fetal heart monitor, which
showed one twin had died and the other was in distress.
“They didn’t have an operating room open,
and she was bumped,” Johnstone said. “They had empty
ORs, but no one opened one. She was put in a hallway. And they didn’t
offer up that information. We had to search and pry and use discovery
to get that information.”
Ultimately, the jury said the delay in getting an
operating room made the hospital liable, but not in the twin’s
death.
An appeal to the 4th District Court of Appeal was
another major hurdle for Johnstone.
Palm Beach Circuit Judge Diana Lewis, a former medical
malpractice defense attorney, had represented Good Samaritan Hospital
before becoming a judge but declined to disqualify herself from
Brown’s case. The 4th DCA granted the request to remove her.
Scott Newmark, an associate at the Schlesinger law
firm, worked on the case with Johnstone.
At trial, the hospital was represented by John Hall,
Michael Pannier and Jack Gresh of Hall Booth Smith & Slover
in Atlanta as well as Addison Meyers with Mintzer Sarowitz Zeris
Ledva & Meyers in Coral Gables.
Good Samaritan paid the judgment but appealed the
award of court costs.
Sheldon J. Schlesinger, P.A. represents clients throughout
the state of Florida including the cities of Boca Raton, Boynton
Beach, Carol City, Cooper City, Coral Gables, Coral Springs, Davie,
Deerfield Beach, Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Hialeah, Hollywood,
Jupiter, Lake Worth, Miramar, Miami, Oakland Park, Palm Beach, Palm
Beach Gardens, Palm Springs, Pompano Beach, and Rivera Beach
Broward County • Miami-Dade County • Palm Beach
County
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