Orthopedic Doctor Re-breaks Unhealed Broken Arm, Jury Awards Victim $700k

Gentry Locke for the Plaintiff

Roanoke City Circuit Court

Our client had a broken arm in which she had a rod placed to allow the bone to heal. A medical rule is that a doctor must never manipulate a broken bone unless the broken bone has been fully healed for a good amount of time. Even though the rod was relatively recently placed and our client’s broken arm had only healed approximately 30%, the defendant orthopedist chose to remove the rod and then manipulate our client’s arm. As the defendant orthopedist did this, he heard a loud snap and later discovered that he had re-broken our client’s arm. The re-breaking of our client’s arm caused her many problems, including permanent loss of range of motion and pain. The defendant refused to accept responsibility for his error and his insurance company (The Doctors’ Company) refused to discuss settlement (it is The Doctors’ Company policy not to discuss settlement in any case), so our client was forced to proceed to Court to obtain justice. The Court found that the case had merit to allow a jury to decide it. After three days of hearing many witnesses, argument from counsel, and numerous pieces of evidence, a jury of seven individuals from the City of Roanoke unanimously found that the defendant committed malpractice that caused significant injury to our client.