A medical malpractice trial involving Dr. James Dalla Riva ended Thursday with a verdict in favor of the doctor and against plaintiff Mary Baugus of Granite City.
It was the third trial this week in which a plaintiff left a Madison County courtroom empty-handed.
A day earlier, another jury ruled against Erma J. Smith of Godfrey, who claimed she permanently injured her hand trying to stop an elevator door from closing. Smith sued St. Anthony's Memorial Hospital in Alton, where she had been visiting a patient, and Kone Elevator Co. which made the elevator. Smith's attorney Robert Wilson argued that, among other things, the elevator did not have an "adequate and safe sensor system in the opening to prevent closing of its door on a passenger."
Jurors disagreed. After six days of argument and testimony, they returned to Circuit Judge Dave Hylla's courtroom Wednesday afternoon with a verdict in favor of the hospital and elevator company.
On Tuesday, it was Rosewood Care Center's turn. Jurors in that case rejected Wood River attorney Brad Lakin's suggestion that they award $15 million to the family of Blanche Rexing, who allegedly died from an overdose of oxycodone and opiates. Rosewood's attorney argued that Rexing, 86, died of natural causes.
The trial involving Baugus and Dalla Riva was a carryover from a May trial that resulted in a hung jury.
Dalla Riva was on the medical staff at Anderson Hospital on Jan. 4, 2002, when he performed an abdominal hysterectomy on Baugus, and removed her ovaries. Attorney David Dammick maintained that Dalla Riva was negligent because he used a "blunt dissection" method that was not appropriate because Baugus had adhesions from an earlier Caesarian section. Baugus allegedly developed severe pain and abnormal bleeding and was found to have a one-inch perforation in her bladder.
Jurors deliberated for three hours.
The three cases follow a recent trend toward defense verdicts in Madison County, which as recently as last December was on the American Tort Reform Association's list of "Judicial Hellholes." On Tuesday, the ATRA plans to release a "Judicial Hellholes 2007 Report" at a news conference in Washington, D.C. A news release touting the event proclaimed "TWO FIRST-TIME HELLHOLES TO BE CITED; A PERENNIAL HELLHOLE DROPS OFF LIST."
Citing "extraordinary changes" that began in 2005 and gained momentum in 2006, the ATRA decided to move Madison County up from "the worst of the worst" to "purgatory." The group cited a drop in lawsuit filings, including class action and asbestos cases, but cautioned that its reputation has not faded and that "civil defendants still shiver at the prospect of facing a lawsuit in Madison County."
Reached by phone, Travis Akin, executive director of the Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch, declined to say whether Madison County will be on the list again this year, but he acknowledged that the county is headed in the right direction. "Obviously, there have been dramatic improvements in the civil justice climates in Madison and St. Clair counties," he said. "Whenever you have a reputation of being a hellhole, it's going to take time to shed that reputation."
Akin gave much of the credit to Chief Judge Ann Callis and to the Illinois Civil Justice League and other tort reform groups.
