In April 2014, Scott Logan, Brad Watson and Chris Logan successfully defended an ophthalmologist and his practice group in Jackson County, Missouri. The plaintiffs were a five year old girl born without 70% of her left upper eyelid and her parents. Eighteen days after birth, our client operated on the plaintiff’s eyelid and performed a Tenzel Semi-Circular Flap procedure to reconstruct the missing eyelid. Post-operatively, the plaintiff did well, but developed a corneal ulcer in her left cornea. Defendants treated the ulcer and it continued to heal. In October 2009, Plaintiffs independently sought out cornea transplants in St. Louis. Plaintiff underwent two grafting procedures, which subsequently failed. The failed corneal transplants caused amblyopia and left the patient with 20/400 vision in her left eye. Our client continued to treat the plaintiff for further eyelid reconstruction procedures into late summer 2010. Plaintiffs alleged that our client performed the initial eyelid surgery too early, performed the wrong procedure and performed unnecessary surgery in late August 2010, which led to blindness in the plaintiff’s left eye. Plaintiffs also claimed that our corporate client did not respond appropriately to Plaintiffs’ phone calls. At trial, Plaintiffs’ claims for damages included blindness of the left eye, disfigurement, medical expenses of $52,000, loss of future wages and the parents’ loss of services for a total of $12,000,000. After 7 days of trial, the jury returned a defense verdict after approximately two hours of deliberation.
