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Mona Shield Payne/Special to the Sun
Attorney Robert Cottle stands with Henry and Lorraine Chanin after the jury’s verdict is read May 7, 2011. Jurors awarded $500 million in punitive damage to the couple.
Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 | 4:53 p.m.
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- Plaintiff: $500 million ‘exactly what was needed’ to make statement in hepatitis C case (5-7-2010)
- Attorney seeking $1 billion in hepatitis C case (5-6-2010)
- Jury finds drugmakers liable in first hepatitis C trial (5-5-2010)
- Jurors to resume hepatitis C deliberations Wednesday (5-4-2010)
- Deliberations continue in first hepatitis C case to reach trial (5-3-2010)
- Jury deliberates in first hepatitis C case to reach trial (4-30-2010)
CARSON CITY – Two drug companies have formally lodged their appeal in Nevada Supreme Court to overturn a $522.4 million judgment awarded to a Henderson man, one of the victims in the hepatitis outbreak in Las Vegas in 2008.
Teva Parenteral Medicines Inc. and Baxter Health Care Corp. through their lawyers, argued in their 200-page appeal there are a number of reasons the district court judgment should be reversed.
Henry Chanin, a Henderson school principal, was infected with hepatitis C during a procedure he underwent at the Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center. He maintains that a registered nurse anesthetist injected him with the prescription anesthetic propofol, which was manufactured and distributed by the two companies.
There were numerous other suits filed after the outbreak, but this was the first one that resulted in a jury verdict. Other defendants named in this suit have settled out of court.
Chanin and his wife, Lorraine, were awarded $500 million in punitive damages, $5.1 million for loss of consortium; $8.4 million in attorneys’ fees and costs, and about $9 million in interest.
The two companies are appealing, among other things, the refusal of District Judge Jessie Walsh to grant a new trial.
Teva and Baxter question allowing Texas lawyers to handle the case. They maintain errors were committed when the judge refused to allow them to assert cross claims against medical providers who administered the propofol because these persons or companies settled out of court.
The jury found that Teva and Baxter failed to properly label the drug vials and they shouldn't have provided the large containers to treatment centers. The Chanins argued that doctors would reuse the large vials and medical personnel would re-use syringes that spread the infection.
The two companies maintain the propofol wasn't contaminated with hepatitis and it did not cause any adverse side effects. They said there is nothing inherently defective in giving a doctor a choice as to which size vial to buy.
The appeal says errors were made in dismissing cases against defendants Dr. Rajat Sood, Bobbie Glass-Seran, the Gastroenterology Center of Nevada and Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center, all of whom had settled out of court.
The drug companies say these defendants should share in paying the judgment since they were the providers that administered the propofol that infected Chanin.
The Chanins will now answer the claims in the appeal and the court will probably hear oral arguments later this year.
It's going to be reversed.
The award should have been 1-2 million, not 500 million.
The people on this jury set a new standard for stupid.
How can a jury justify a $500 million dollar judgment? I sympathize with the gentlemen that has been infected with hepatitis C, but please!
1. He appears to be 50+ (How many more earning years does he have left and does the disease affect his ability to work?) Lets say that he makes a generous 100k salary for a principal and planned to work until age 65. That leaves us with 1.5 million dollars of lost wages assuming he can no longer work.
2. Damages because of undue stress and the fact that he has a horrible disease because of some sort of malfeasance on the part of the drug companies. Multiplying his "lost-wages" by 10 would get us to 15 million dollars.
3. Exorbitant attorneys fees. 8.4 million
1.5+15+8.4
24.9 million dollars. A pretty penny and I think could be generously justifiable.
Making someone a 1/2 billionaire? PLEASE.
Let's say you make paint. You make good paint. It is bright. It glows in the dark. Towns use it to paint school crosswalks. A child going to school is in a cross walk when a thief mugs that kid with a rusty tire iron, which he uses to hit the kid during the course of the robbery. Hiding in the rust is Tetanus, which infects that kid and kills him.
Is it fair for your paint to be blamed for the mugging? Is it fair that the trial judge did not allow the jury to hear that it was the rusty tire iron and the mugging -- not your paint -- that caused the kid to get lockjaw and die? Should you have to pay because the kid was young and cute, even though you did nothing that caused or contributed to the mugging, the rust on the tire iron, or the tetanus lurking in it?