Hepatitis scare malpractice cases already in works

Friday, Feb. 29, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Las Vegas class action attorney Will Kemp said he got a phone call Wednesday from a man who feared he had contracted a harmful virus at a medical clinic.

“At first I thought he was kidding,” Kemp said.

He wasn’t. As Kemp learned in the 7 p.m. call, the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada is believed by the Southern Nevada Health District to have exposed as many as 40,000 patients to the hepatitis C virus.

Steve Marcus

The office of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, 700 Shadow Lane, is shown Wednesday, February 27, 2008. The Southern Nevada Health District is notifying approximately 40,000 former patients of the center that they may have been exposed to hepatitis C.

Less than 24 hours after the call, Kemp filed a class action lawsuit in District Court in Clark County against the Endoscopy Center. Kemp is seeking payment to cover tests for hepatitis B and C on his two Nevada clients, former Endoscopy Center patients Michael Cordero and Richard Taylor. Kemp also wants them tested for the HIV antibody, and they’re seeking damages for pain and suffering.

If the court grants the lawsuit class action status, other former patients could become part of it.

“I would think at least hundreds of people have been infected just on the basis of the percentage of people who have hepatitis or AIDS in the general population,” Kemp said. “There’s so many things wrong here. Using dirty syringes is a Third World practice. My clients are scared to death that they could have an infectious disease.”

Fellow Las Vegas attorney Gerald Gillock, a medical malpractice specialist who represents one of the six people the Health District believes were infected with hepatitis at the clinic, said he wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be the state’s largest-ever class action medical malpractice case.

“If these allegations are true, there will be a number of medical malpractice cases,” Gillock said. “Once these people get tested, it could be a real tragedy.”

Under a 2004 state law, damages for pain and suffering from medical malpractice cannot exceed $350,000 per incident. But Gillock said it is a certainty that the constitutionality of the cap will be challenged before the Nevada Supreme Court and that the $350,000 ceiling could be struck down before any Endoscopy Center cases make their way through the courts.

The clients represented by Kemp and Gillock make up what UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Jean Sternlight said could be two types of plaintiffs — those who have been infected with a virus and are therefore in line for potential big-money damages, and a larger number of individuals who aren’t infected but claim to be traumatized by the threat of infection and seek compensation for testing.

“There’s no reason to believe that only six people were infected,” Sternlight said. “The clinic should have known that what it was doing was wrong.”

The Associated Press reported Thursday night that another class action suit has been filed, naming Charles Anthony Rader Jr. as a plaintiff who claims he could have been exposed to the diseases at the Endoscopy Center. Las Vegas attorney Peter Wetherall is handling the case.

Discussion: 2 comments so far…

By MyersandGomel

3/1/08 at 12:55 p.m.

Suggest removal

Not long ago an organization named "Keep Our Doctors in Nevada" pressured the Nevada Legislature into an emergency session and persuaded the Nevada citizens to vote for medical malpractice protection, all in the name of a phony "medical malpractice crisis." Dr. Dipak Desai and the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada were behind the Keep Our Doctors in Nevada group, shelling out at least $25,000 to buy protection from injured patients. As a result, medical providers, INCLUDING DR. DESAI AND HIS CLINIC, are protected by caps on damage awards. Does anyone now think $350,000 is adequate compensation for the pain and suffering that will be endured by any patient of Dr. Desai who contracts HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, or Hepatitis C?

Like many lawyers who represent injured medical patients, our law firm, Myers & Gomel, fought against the caps, and I can tell you this is precisely the type of situation we were concerned about when the doctors and their insurance companies used the "Keep Our Doctors in Nevada" fear campaign to achieve their selfish goal of protective caps. The truth is we shouldn't keep doctors like Dr. Desai in Nevada, and doctors like Dr. Desai don't deserve protective caps so they can practice sub-standard medicine with no fear of a jury's verdict.

This is a real "medical malpractice crisis," and it will not be the last one unless and until doctors like Dr. Desai can be held accountable in full for the pain and suffering caused by such blatant and irresposible malpractice. Nevada voters should demand that the doctors' special shield laws be repealed and that they be treated like the rest of us.
By pat89005

3/6/08 at 10:05 p.m.

Suggest removal

I had a colonscopy at the Gastroenterology Clinic of Nevada around 2005 or 2006. I had my blood tests done last Friday and they came back negative.
Thank God, as I already have gone thru breast cancer in 2004 and in the same breast in 2005 a scare that turned out to be a infection. However this took going thru surgery again in order to find out. Not to mention numerous other ailments from the chemo and radiation since then. I have no idea
if I should join a law suit since my actual test results are negative at this time or not. Can any one advise.
Thank you.