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Below are representative settlements and verdicts pursued and won by the Law Office of Gerald M. Oginski, LLC. After failing to reach satisfactory financial settlements with insurance companies, these New York residents came to Gerry seeking justice and fair compensation for the injuries they incurred as a result of a doctor’s, surgeon’s or hospital’s negligence, or from the negligence of a person or business entity. Gerry got them justice. Since 1988 Gerry has been helping injured people restore their dignity. Right now, you have a lot of choices to make and Gerry can help you make the choices that will get you what you need quickly, honorably, and with your dignity intact. Gerry will make every effort to help you maximize your benefits, while protecting you and your family.

Medical Malpractice

• $6,000,000- Misread stress test leads to permanent heart damage - A young man had chest pain and was evaluated in an emergency room and admitted to the hospital. He was given a stress test and cardiac workup. Unfortunately, the stress test was misread, leading to devastating heart damage that could have been prevented. (As much as we'd like to discuss more details of this tragic cardiac case, we cannot because of a confidentiality agreement between the parties.)

Awarded: $6,000,000- Misread stress test leads to permanent heart damage

• $5,100.000 - A delayed obstetrical delivery resulted in significant brain damage to a beautiful little child. This case was settled through trial counsel shortly before jury selection was scheduled to begin. The failure to timely deliver the infant, we alleged, was a significant cause for this child's permanent brain injury.

Awarded: $5,100.000

• $4,750,000 - A young woman presented to her doctor with complaints of a lump in her breast. The mammogram images were misread leading to a failure to timely diagnose breast cancer. The cancer spread throughout her body and ultimately killed her, leaving a young husband and three young children without their mother.
  
  The case settled at jury selection when special trial counsel was  sent to pick a jury. Had the breast cancer been timely detected, this young woman had an excellent chance of a cure as the mass was small and would likely have responded to surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Awarded: $4,750,000

• $1,550,000 - On Friday, July 23, 2010, a Westchester County jury in the Supreme Court of the State of New York determined that my client, A.F. was entitled to be compensated $1.5 million as compensation for injuries caused by a podiatrist during bunion surgery. Her husband, D.F. was entitled to be compensated $50,000 for his lost services claim.
  
  The case involved a claim of a failure to properly perform foot surgery involving my client's bunion on her right foot. It was our claim that the podiatrist removed too much bone during the procedure, and improperly positioned the first metatarsal. As result, this changed the dynamic forces of her foot and forced her to bear most of her weight underneath the second and third metatarsals in her foot. We also claimed that the patient should have had her second and third metatarsals surgically shortened during her first bunion surgery. This would have prevented the problem from arising.
  
  Instead, the patient developed pain, pressure and discomfort on the bottom of her foot following surgery. The podiatrist recommended corrective surgery to shorten the second and third metatarsals eight months after her first surgery. The patient became quite frustrated and no longer had confidence in the ability of the podiatrist. She then went to an orthopedic surgeon with a specialty in foot and ankle surgery in Manhattan. He performed surgery to shorten the second and third metatarsals, but because of the damage already taken place, his surgery was unable to fix the primary problem.
  
  Since conservative treatment failed she's been offered additional surgery to correct the problem to shorten bones in her foot, or as an alternative, to undergo destructive surgery that will fuse bones in her foot. There are no guarantees that these surgeries will help improve her condition. At the present time, she has elected to deal with the pain and discomfort on a daily basis and may need to have one or both of these surgeries in the future.
  
  After two weeks of a hard-fought trial in Westchester, and after listening to testimony from the podiatrist, the podiatrist's expert, our expert, the treating physician and the plaintiffs, the jury determined that this podiatrist departed from good and accepted podiatric and surgical care; that this departure was a substantial factor in causing my client injury, and that she was entitled to be compensated.
  
  The jury awarded her $375,000 for past pain and suffering, for the last five years.
  The jury awarded her $1,125,000 for future pain and suffering, representing future injury over the next 30 years.
  The jury awarded her husband $50,000 for his loss of services claim.
  
  This verdict represents a remarkable statement by a unanimous jury.

Awarded: $1,550,000

• $1,000,000 - A young man with a suspected dislocated shoulder had his shoulder "reduced." This is a fancy medical term meaning they put the shoulder back in the socket. Since they had to manipulate the man's shoulder many times to get it back in, the doctors failed to recognize that they damaged the nerve leading from the armpit to the hand. 
  
  Importantly, there was fluid that compressed the nerve in the arm, causing a decrease and ultimately a total lack of blood flow to the nerve. The doctors failed to timely recognize this nerve injury. When they finally recognized the problem and took the patient into surgery, the damage had already been done, leading to permanent nerve injury. 

Awarded: $1,000,000

• $1,000,000 - A woman lost eyesight in one eye because a hospital failed to tell her about her brain tumor. This woman was involved in a car accident and suffered head trauma. She was taken to an emergency room where a CAT scan was done for her head. The doctor who evaluated the CAT scan correctly recognized an abnormal mass was growing in her brain-totally unrelated to her car accident and her recent trauma. The problem was that nobody told the patient about her growing brain tumor. This caused the tumor to grow and put pressure on the optic nerve, leading to blindness in one eye.

Awarded: $1,000,000

• $850,000 -

  The case involved the improper insertion of stents into my client's penis causing total destruction of the tube that carries urine from the bladder down into and through the penis. This tube is called the urethra. We alleged that the doctor never should have inserted stents into this man’s urethra and doing so was a departure from good medical care. Putting the stents in, taking them out, and putting two new ones in, destroyed his entire urethra.

Awarded: $850,000

• $775,000 - A man lost eyesight in one eye because an eye doctor failed to recognize that the optic nerve was cut during surgery. A man was mugged and suffered broken bones in his face. The muscle that controlled movement of his eye from side to side got trapped in a broken bone and needed to be removed. The doctor who did the surgery claimed to be proficient in this surgery and chose to do the procedure rather than let a more experienced surgeon do it. After the surgery, the patient had no vision. Even after immediate corrective surgery, the nerve that controlled eyesight was totally destroyed, leaving the patient with permanent blindness in one eye.

Awarded: $775,000

• $750,000 - A woman died because her doctor failed to recognize massive infection following gynecologic surgery.

Awarded: $750,000

• $700,000 - Baby suffered brain damage from botched delivery.

Awarded: $700,000

• $580,000 - 67 year old woman aspirated while having a colonoscopy. The doctors failed to intubate, failed to give her sufficient oxygen, and failed to timely call an ambulance. She died two days later.

Awarded: $580,000

• $500,000 - Failure to timely diagnose lung cancer resulting in death

Awarded: $500,000

• $500,000 - Woman had to be emergently re-operated when knee surgery was botched.

Awarded: $500,000

• $490,000 - This patient was told she needed a hysterectomy because of an abnormal pap test that strongly suggested the patient had invasive cervical cancer, according to the doctor. The hysterectomy was done and pathology revealed the patient did not have invasive cancer.

Awarded: $490,000

• $415,000 - Woman died from failure to diagnose bladder cancer. She had been going to her local clinic for regular check-ups and for various complaints throughout the years. Urine tests revealed blood in her urine that was never followed up. Her complaints of spotting also were never properly followed up. In hindsight, these were significant warning signs that should have alerted the physician to get additional testing that would have revealed bladder cancer at an early stage.

Awarded: $415,000

• $395,000 - A woman had laparoscopic gynecologic surgery to remove cysts on her ovaries. The surgeon failed to recognize that during the procedure he perforated her intestine. Despite continued complaints of abdominal pain the next day, the physician advised her it was 'normal' post-operative pain, and this woman died the following day. 
  
  An autopsy revealed a through and through perforation of the intestines causing bowel contents, to leak into her abdomen. She became acutely ill and died from a massive infection throughout her body.

Awarded: $395,000

• $350,000 - 4-year-old girl was misdiagnosed leading to double pneumonia, surgery and loss of part of her lung.

Awarded: $350,000

• $350,000 - Woman lost her uterus after doctors failed to recognize an infection following a tubal pregnancy.

Awarded: $350,000

• $350,000 - A man asked for 6 dental implants, and was talked into getting 20 implants; 10 for his upper jaw, and 10 for his lower jaw.
  A dental implant is a titanium screw that is literally screwed into the bone that acts as a foundation for either a bridge, or porcelain teeth. Once the bone has healed, a post is placed on top of the implant, and then a cap or crown is put on the post. Or, a fixed bridge is made and then attached to the posts.
  
  In this man's case, the implants were not properly put in his jaw, they were too close together and angled incorrectly. This dentist put an implant into the patient's sinus and failed to recognize it. He also created a fistula into the sinus and despite two attempts to fix it, could not, and never sent the patient to a specialist to fix it. 
  
  The patient also suffered nerve injury since the dentist never obtained a pre-operative CT scan to evaluate the patient's bone and nerve structure. One final point: The dentist inexplicably threw out 20-40 intra-operative x-rays, claiming he did not need them.
  
  On the day of jury selection, I was able to successfully obtain a settlement of $350,000. 

Awarded: $350,000

• $325,000 - A family man died when a blood clot to his lungs was not properly treated, resulting in pain, suffering and an untimely death.

Awarded: $325,000

• $322,500 - A young man put his arm through a window and cut his arm badly. In the emergency room, the doctor stitching him up tied off the ulnar nerve in two separate places. If that wasn't bad enough, he failed to recognize the difference between a bleeding artery and a nerve, and never realized the injury he created. The young man required 2 corrective surgeries and now has limited sensation in his hand.

Awarded: $322,500

• $312,500 - A 25 year old woman had eyelid surgery performed that was botched and required corrective surgeries.

Awarded: $312,500

• $300,000 - A man bled to death from a ruptured gastric ulcer from orthopedic pain medication.

Awarded: $300,000

• $300,000 - Woman died from a misplaced feeding tube. This woman required a feeding tube after she suffered injuries from a house fire. While recuperating her feeding tube somehow became dislodged. When the doctors reinserted the feeding tube, they put in in the wrong place, causing all nutrition to flow into her abdomen, causing massive infection, leading to her untimely death.

Awarded: $300,000

• $300,000 - Man died from misdiagnosis of mesothelioma.

Awarded: $300,000

• $250,000 - Woman suffered coma and short term memory loss from improper administration of anesthesia.

Awarded: $250,000

• $250,000 - A woman had spine surgery which went well. Three days later, she was unable to move her legs, leading her to believe there was a neurological problem. Ineffective communication with the doctor's office was a significant problem leading to a delay in admitting the patient to the hospital. 
  
  Once admitted, the "gold standard" test used to evaluate the patient's fluid collection in her spine was not done. Instead, other tests were done, without definitive results. This caused further delay in obtaining the necessary imaging tests to find out why the patient was having neurological symptoms.
  
  Surgery to remove the fluid build-up was successful and after weeks of rehabilitation, the patient return to most of her routine and regular daily function.
  
  The bottom line was that had the patient been immediately admitted and had surgery to remove the fluid build-up in the spine, the injuries and rehabilitation would have been much less than they turned out to be. 

Awarded: $250,000

• $240,000 - Woman had bowel perforated during laparoscopic surgery

Awarded: $240,000

• $229,000 - A man broke his arm and was put into a cast. When the cast was removed, his arm looked like a roller coaster. He required surgery to re-break his arm and had hardware inserted to hold the bone together.

Awarded: $229,000

• $220,000 - A woman suffered permanent bone loss because her dentist failed to recognize the extent of her dental decay.

Awarded: $220,000

• $210,000 - A man had his gallbladder removed using laparoscopy. This is known as a Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy. The physician failed to recognize that he clamped off the common bile duct during the surgery. Shortly after, the patient returned with pain, vomiting and abdominal distension. Still, the surgeon failed to recognize the problem.
  
  The patient ultimately was correctly diagnosed and required extensive open laparotomy to correct the problem. 

Awarded: $210,000

• $210,000 - A man had his gallbladder removed laparoscopically. Shortly afterward, he began having abdominal symptoms that required further work-up. Despite a worsening condition, the man was not seen back in the office until it was too late. By this time, he was in severe pain and could barely walk.
  
  Emergency surgery revealed that the common bile duct had been clipped, causing terrible pain and suffering and temporary kidney damage. The common bile duct should never be clipped off during laparoscopic gallbladder surgery. Once the corrective surgery was completed, the patient required a few months of recuperation and was given a clean bill of health shortly afterward.

Awarded: $210,000

• $200,000 - A woman who had a single compartment knee replacement, known as a "uni-compartment" knee replacement, had it inserted incorrectly. The hardware was never properly secured and the physician failed to take an intra-operative x-ray to confirm the correct placement. As a result, the patient was closed up, and told to have physical therapy. Almost immediately, the patient experienced pain in an area of her knee that she never had before. 
  
  Months later, another orthopedic surgeon took x-rays and confirmed that the hardware was not inserted correctly. Another surgery was required to remove the single compartment knee, and in its' place, this woman had to have a total knee inserted. 

Awarded: $200,000

• $200,000 - A woman needed emergency surgery when her first surgeon failed to remove a tumor.

Awarded: $200,000

• $200,000 - Woman suffered bowel perforation during surgery.

Awarded: $200,000

• $175,000 - A boy suffered the loss of a testicle because a hospital did not timely recognize that the testicle was twisted and needed immediate treatment.

Awarded: $175,000

• $175,000 - Young man died after hernia surgery because he was given too much anesthesia that went unmonitored

Awarded: $175,000

• $130,000 - Man had spinal fracture that radiologist misread.

Awarded: $130,000

• $125,000 - A little boy suffered burns from removal of a cast on his foot from improper use of a cast cutter.

Awarded: $125,000

• $90,000 - A dental patient was under the care of his dentist for over ten years. The dentist failed to recognize extensive decay, gum disease and bone loss during that time. The patient required dental reconstruction to restore his mouth to working condition.

Awarded: $90,000

• $50,000. - Dental Malpractice with corrective treatment

Awarded: $50,000.

Gynecology Errors and Mistakes

• $450,000 - Your doctor tells you to "sign here" and everything will be okay. You don't ask questions and you don't read the consent form since the doctor is so reassuring. You are in surgery much longer than expected. Nevertheless, the doctor comes out and tells your family everything went great. Unfortunately for this woman, everything wasn't that great. She had symptoms over the next few days to suggest that there were problems that should have been looked into. There were delays in recognizing she had a bowel perforation, or a hole, that was never recognized at the time of surgery.
  
  No one recognized that this patient's continued complaints of abdominal pain, fever and infection could possibly be related to a perforation caused during her original gynecologic surgery. Her condition continued to deteriorate to the point where MRIs were taken and even then, when it was clear that she had free air in her belly the surgeon still failed to take her to the operating room in a timely fashion.
  
  Corrective surgery done five days after her initial surgery required her to have a colostomy which continually leaked over the next three months. She required surgery to close a colostomy opening and she had to have further surgery as a result of a hernia that resulted from this corrective surgery. In her particular case, corrective surgery would have been required whether this had been recognized two days after her first surgery or five days after the surgery.

Awarded: $450,000

Wrongful Death Cases

• $450,000 - Who would ever think that 9 months after having a bunion removed by a podiatrist, they'd be dead from a failure to diagnose and treat a bone infection?
  
  That's exactly what happened to this woman. She kept going back to her foot doctor complaining of pain, swelling, redness. The doctor kept removing dead tissue surrounding the wound which never healed. He never considered the possibility that this patient had osteomyelitis, which is an infection in the bone. The podiatrist had plenty of opportunity to send the patient to an infectious disease specialist or to another doctor for a second opinion. The problem was, he failed to recognize the significance of her postoperative wound infection and did not realize how bad it was until it was glaring and any layperson would have seen how severe it was.
  
  This woman's death was entirely preventable had this doctor recognized his limitations and that this wound was not healing.

Awarded: $450,000

Bicycle Accidents

• $95,000 - A driver had just come off a highway exit and was approaching a T intersection controlled by a stop sign. The driver actually came to a stop. He intended to turn left, but inexplicably only looked to his right, at the same time he pressed on the gas pedal to go into the intersection. Bad move. Had he bothered to look to his left, he would have seen the bike rider that he crashed into. The bicyclist suffered a fractured finger needing surgery with pins; a torn tendon in his knee, requiring surgery to fix, and injured his shoulder.
  
  The driver had a limited insurance policy of $100,000, and of that amount, I was able to secure a successful settlement of $95,000. 

Awarded: $95,000

Negligence Cases

• $150,000 - An apartment building in Queens was having its roof replaced. The roofers, while working with hot tar, caused a fire which destroyed the upper level of this apartment building. During the repair and renovation of the apartments, it was learned that there was extensive asbestos within the damaged apartments which required removal. All of my clients property had to be disposed of because of extensive water damage and the presence of asbestos.
  
  After a lengthy and hotly contested property damage litigation we were able to successfully resolve this case prior to going to trial.

Awarded: $150,000

Car Accidents

• $350,000 - A woman was crossing 23rd street at 1st Ave. in Manhattan, on her way to work, when she was hit by a Mack truck making a left hand turn from 1st Ave. onto 23rd Street. At that intersection there are at least three large "yield to pedestrian traffic" signs that the truck should have seen, but failed to see.
  
  As a result of being hit by the truck, she was knocked to the ground where she suffered a fracture to her left wrist; was knocked unconscious, and had cuts and lacerations to her forehead. Her fractured wrist required surgery with internal fixators and  external fixators to hold the bones in place while they healed. She remained out of work for six weeks.
  
  

Awarded: $350,000

Personal Injury

• $197,500 - Man had hand cut when bouncer in a bar hit him with beer bottle.

Awarded: $197,500

• $185,000 - Woman slipped and fell on black ice resulting in femur fracture

Awarded: $185,000

• $105,000 - 82 year old man fell into a trench while crossing street resulting in fractured elbow, ambulatory surgery and physical therapy.

Awarded: $105,000

• $100,000 - Man crossing street at entrance to a parking lot hit by a car suffered serious injuries.

Awarded: $100,000

• $50,000 - A young man was riding his bicycle home from work when a car, making a left turn, ran into him, causing a fractured arm and torn meniscus requiring surgery. Unfortunately, the car had only a limited insurance policy.

Awarded: $50,000

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