Family and Estate of George Strom, Jr. v. UMass Memorial Medical Center

Worcester, MA - The family and estate of George Strom, Jr., deceased, sued UMass Memorial Medical Center on a medical negligence (medical malpractice) theory claiming that the failure of the hospital's nursing staff to transfer Mr. Strom to the hospital's critical care unit depriving him of the change of surviving congestive heart failure and atrial flutter. Mr. Strom presented at the hospital's emergency room complaining of shortness of breath and unexplained weight gain on Easter Sunday 2008. He was admitted for treatment but his condition worsened during his first night in the hospital and an order was entered directing that he be moved the hospital's critical care unit but was not carried out for 11 hours. He was found unconscious and was intubated and moved to the critical care unit where he died 11 days later.



Plaintiff claimed that Mr. Strom lost the chance to survive his illness as a direct result of substandard care on the part of the hospital's nursing staff.



The hospital denied wrongdoing.

Plaintiff's verdict for $250,000.00.

Editor's Comment: Mr. Brunelle was able to convince the tried of fact (jury) that Mr. Strom's death was premature because he did not get the care that he needed to survive the congestive heart failure from which he suffered. Unfortunately for him and his client he was not able to convince the jury to award damages that would make it worth the time and effort needed to present the case to the jury.

Medical malpractice cases are generally very expensive to successfully prosecute to verdict. It is not unusual to incur $100,000 in out of pocket expenses in trying a case to verdict. Once the out of pockets are deducted and the client paid his share of the award, there isn't much of the award to compensate the plaintiff's attorney for the representation.