LITTLE ROCK — Six years after a surgeon cut out the wrong part of their 15-year-old son’s brain in an operation featured on the front page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Pamela and Kenny Metheny said their youngest child’s healing really began Friday. That’s when a Pulaski County jury awarded the family a $20 million judgment after finding that Arkansas Children’s Hospital was negligent for the surgery.
“It is so apparent there’s negligence that it boggles the mind we had to go through this,” family attorney Grant Davis of Kansas City, Mo., told jurors in his closing arguments that capped 13 days of testimony.
Cody Ryan Metheny was a special-education student when he had the August 2004 operation to remove faulty brain tissue believed to be the source of his seizure disorder. During the operation, Dr. Badih Adada, then-chief of pediatric neurosurgery at the hospital, first cut out matter from the wrong side of his brain before performing the procedure on the correct side- an error the Methenys said turned a vibrant teenager into an emotionless husk of a man subjected to psychotic delusions, continuing seizures and deteriorating intelligence.
“If he had seizure disorder before, it doesn’t mean they have a right to tear up his brain,” Davis said. “He had a right to live his life with the brain he had, and they came in and changed that forever. They’ve taken more from Cody than he has to give.”
The negligence finding against the hospital was unanimous by the seven men and five women of the jury, while the $20 million award was endorsed by 11 of the jurors. The hospital’s insurance company is responsible for paying the judgment, and an appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court is expected.
At the jury’s decision - delivered in just under two hours - the Methenys wept in each other’s arms. Cody Metheny’s doctors predict he will need life-long care. He has been institutionalized in Virginia but his parents want to enroll him in a Benton center.
“We can move on with Cody,” Pamela Metheny said. “We can get help for Cody, and we can bring him closer to home.”
“My son ... can have a life,” Kenny Metheny said.
The bungled surgery will cause Cody Metheny’s mind to further deteriorate, Davis told jurors Friday. With Adada admitting wrongdoing - his insurance company paid $1 million - Davis said the hospital was hiding behind the surgeon, who remained in his position for another three years after the error. Under Arkansas law, the hospital couldn’t be found liable if the jury had decided Adada, who also was employed at the time by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, was solely responsible for the error.
“They are on a kick of blaming Dr. Adada,” Davis said.
The Little Rock family’s attorneys said hospital nurses weren’t adequately prepared and administrators didn’t thoroughly investigate Adada’s mistakes and promptly disclose them to the family, who didn’t learn for months the extent of the damage.
Davis proposed a $40 million award to compensate Cody Metheny for his pain and suffering, future earnings and the costs of lifetime treatment, expected to be another 55 years.
Attorney Jason Hendren, representing the hospital’s insurance carriers Medical Insurance Co., also known as Proassurance Indemnity Co., told jurors that the Methenys had built their case on overheated lawyer rhetoric and mercenary experts, comparing the family’s medical witnesses to the old TV Western Have Gun, Will Travel. The experts testifying on behalf of the hospital were the true authorities, he said, and Adada is solely to blame.
“Those experts ... have testimony, will travel,” he said in his closing arguments. “We wanted you to hear from experts with real experience ...with the issues in this case.”
Metheny was injured by the mistake, but healed and his mental faculties improved, Hendren argued.
“If this case ... were about sympathy for Cody Metheny, we would not be here. To speak truth, your verdict has to be about evidence, not sympathy,” he said. “When they give you all of these damages, you’ve got to ask yourselves, where in the evidence is that coming from?”
The Methenys initially filed suit about a year after the operation, and the case went to trial in April 2008, only to be halted by their original attorney, Phillip Duncan, after nine days of proceedings over allegations of jury misconduct. He was jubilant Friday as Judge Ellen Brantley read the verdict.
“Justice is sweet,” he said.
In a statement late Friday night, Children’s Hospital officials said “the safety of our patients is always our top priority, but in this case, the patient did experience a wrong-sided surgery.
“Nothing is more precious to us than the children whose care, safety and well-bring are entrusted to us. We take this verdict very seriously and have redoubled our efforts to prevent such an event ever happening again.
“We deeply regret this happened. We wish only the best for this young man and his family.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 09/25/2010