Jury reduces medical malpractice award

Monday, March 19, 2001 | 10:35 a.m.

A Clark County jury Friday awarded a 32-year-old Las Vegas woman $1.5 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit, but slashed the award almost in half by finding her partially responsible for her condition.

Melanie Spradlin filed a lawsuit in September 1997 against St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Dr. John Goebel and Dr. Hisham Hito after she suffered a back injury.

Spradlin claimed that the hospital's staff members injured her back worse when they moved her off and onto a gurney, and she further claimed that Goebel and Hito failed to admit her into the hospital, tell her the severity of her condition or refer her to a neurosurgeon.

As a result, herniated discs impinged upon her nerve roots so severely that she suffered "permanent and debilitating nerve damage" and was left in an "irreversibly disabled condition."

The hospital and Goebel settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed sum several years ago, and the case against Hito went to trial three weeks ago.

Hito's attorney, John Cotton, argued that Spradlin was given advice but she did not act upon it swiftly enough.

After hearing seven days of testimony from 18 witnesses, the jurors decided Hito was 51 percent responsible for Spradlin's condition and she was 49 percent responsible.

As a result, the $1.5 million judgment they awarded Spradlin for lost wages, pain and suffering and medical expenses will be reduced by 49 percent.