Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

$100,100,000

Friday, a jury awarded Allan Navarro and his family $116.7-million for the pain and loss of his crippling, misdiagnosed stroke. Tuesday came the verdict to punish the doctors:

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published October 4, 2006

TAMPA - A misdiagnosis by emergency room doctors left Allan Navarro forever disabled.

"Put it to 'em," Navarro's attorney told jurors Tuesday.

The jury's answer: a $100.1-million verdict.

The punitive damages award followed last week's record-breaking verdict of nearly $117-million to Navarro for economic and pain and suffering damages.

Before hearing the verdict Tuesday afternoon, his attorneys vowed to donate all punitive damages to charities that serve people with brain and spinal cord injuries.

"So that people will find hope in what we did today," attorney Steve Yerrid said.

Navarro's journey to the courtroom began six years ago. A former pro basketball player in the Philippines, he went to the University Community Hospital Carrollwood emergency room Aug. 9, 2000, complaining of nausea, headache, dizziness and double vision.

A doctor sent him home five hours later with a painkiller prescription and a diagnosis of sinusitis.

No one realized Navarro was having a stroke. He returned to the hospital with more severe symptoms the next morning and underwent surgery hours later to relieve brain swelling. He ended up in a coma for three months and emerged from it totally and permanently disabled.

Before his illness, Navarro was a machine operator earning just above minimum wage. Now 50, he is confined to bed or must use a wheelchair.

Navarro's attorneys sued the doctors and physicians groups who provided emergency care services at the hospital. The hospital was not sued.

On Friday, a three-week trial ended with what Yerrid said was the largest jury verdict ever in Florida and the largest in the country this year. Testimony revealed that an unlicensed physician's assistant initially examined Navarro, and the attending physician based his diagnosis on that exam.

A flurry of legal maneuvering preceded Tuesday's verdict.

On Monday, the physicians groups began bankruptcy proceedings in federal court. The move triggered an automatic stay in the Navarro's case against them.

Yerrid and a team of attorneys kicked into high gear.

At 3 a.m. Tuesday, they electronically filed an emergency motion to get the stay lifted. When courts opened hours later, they sought an emergency hearing.

U.S. District Judge Paul Glenn, who presides over bankruptcy court, granted the hearing and the plaintiff's motion. Navarro's case could go on.

Back in Circuit Judge Gregory Holder's courtroom on Tuesday afternoon, Yerrid leaned toward jurors and spoke to them as though they had become friends.

He said they had repaired Navarro in the only way they could, giving him the multimillion verdict for his lost wages and suffering. Now they needed to punish the doctors, Yerrid said.

"You can send a message: Don't do this!" he said.

Brian Stokes, the doctors' attorney, said Carrollwood Emergency Physicians and Franklin, Favata & Hulls physician groups have not been in business since 2004 and have no more than $100,000 remaining in their bank accounts. They couldn't withstand another large judgment, he said.

"The message has been received," he said.

Yerrid countered that several of the doctors who once held the contract for University Community Hospital's emergency room still work there under a different physician's group. Carrollwood Emergency Physicians also filed a tax return that showed it paid out $7.5-million in salaries in 2005, Yerrid said.

Navarro's attorneys said they now will go after ProNational Insurance Co. to collect the damages. The insurance company refused the plaintiff's offer to settle the case for $2-million and now is trying to get out of covering one of the doctors who treated Navarro, Yerrid said.

Yerrid reacted to news of the verdict Tuesday with a Tiger Woods fist pump. Navarro and his wife, Marilyn, broke down in tears.

"This isn't about money," said Navarro's brother-in-law, Ed Bilbao. "This is about the search for justice. And today in this court, justice is served."

Colleen Jenkins can be reached at 813 226-3337 or cjenkins@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 4, 2006, 00:03:07]