Virginia Lawyers Weekly

A Newport News Circuit Court jury has returned a $4 million verdict for a woman who has undergone a heart transplant because of cardiomyopathy that was detected five months after the birth of her son in Feb 2005.

William E. Artz, the Arlington attorney who represented Leslie Thorne, alleged that three emergency room physicians were negligent in failing to detect the heart condition on three separate occasions when she sought treatment for the ailment.

Postpartum cardiomyopathy is relatively rare, occurring in only one of 2,500 births, and its cause is not well known. It is thought to result from a virus or immunological that occurs within a month before birth or within five months afterward, Artz said.

Thorne, who was 26 at the time, first went to the emergency room at Sentara Port Warwick Hospital on June 11, 2005, with complaints of shortness of breath, chest pain and a cough. A chest X-ray showed an enlarged heart.

A physician diagnosed bronchitis and sent her home with a prescription for an antibiotic.

Thorne returned to the emergency room on July 5 with complaints of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. An X-ray again showed an enlarged heart. The physician diagnosed a viral syndrome and sent her home.

Eight days later, Thorne went to Mary Immaculate Hospital, with the same complaints plus swelling in her lower extremities. An electrocardiogram was abnormal and blood analysis showed elevated liver function enzymes, a finding consistent with congestive heart failure, Artz said.

The physician, Dr. David Glick, diagnosed hepatitis, prescribed diuretics and referred Thorne to her primary care physician.

Her mother came to Newport News from Baltimore to visit her and returned with Thorne to Baltimore because of concern about her condition. She was diagnosed correctly there on July 17 and given intravenous diuretics and beta blockers.

She was transferred to the University of Maryland Hospital, where the heart transplant occurred on Aug. 29.

Artz named all three ER physicians as defendants, but the attorneys who represented them asked to withdraw during the trial because a defense expert concluded that the first two physicians had met the standard of care but he was more equivocal about Glick.

Artz decided to nonsuit the case against the first two defendants, and the trial continued against Glick with no testimony by the defense expert about the standard of care as to him.

Defense attorneys contended that Glick could not be held responsible because the disease had progressed to the point that a heart transplant still would have been required even if he had diagnosed Thorne’s condition correctly.

The cap in effect at the time of Thorne’s illness was $1.8 million. Her medical bills at the time of trial totaled $456,000, and Artz said her future bills will include the cost of a lifetime of medication to prevent rejection of the heart and $14,000 a year for medical tests to monitor possible rejection.

Thorne also has a substantially reduced life expectancy, he said.

Moreover, Artz said, “she lives with a heart that she didn’t have to have and that could have gone to someone else.”
Post-trial motions are due later this month.

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