Date: 10-03-2009

Case Style: James Kerns v. Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital

Case Number:

Judge: Tim Henderson

Court: District Court, Sedgwick County, Kansas

Plaintiff's Attorney: Mark Huffton and Darin Hayes, Hutton & Hutton Law Firm, LLC, Wichita, Kansas

Defendant's Attorney:

Description: James Kerns, age 75, sued Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital on a medical negligence (medical malpractice) theory claiming that a nurse employed by the hospital dropped a bandage while changing it. She picked it up off the floor and re-placed it on Kern's wound. Kerns developed an E. coli infection after the incident.

Defendant denied that the nurse's act of picking up the bandage and placed it on the wound had nothing to do with the E. coli infection.

The nurse refused to answer questions about drug use and was convicted to possession of methamphetamines.

Outcome: Plaintiff's verdict for $430,000.00.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

Comments: Editor's Note: Causation is scientifically very difficult to prove in hospital acquired infection cases. Also, the fact that the nurse who dropped the bandage was later convicted of meth possession would not seem to be terribly relevant and potentially highly inflammatory. We will see what the Kansas appellate courts do with this verdict, assuming that it is appealed.