$194,500 settlement in a pharmacy negligence case against a pharmacy compounding laboratory that compounded a medication used in cataract surgery. The plaintiff developed fungal endophthalmitis in her eye that caused a significant eye injury.

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Daren Niemi, from Sweeney Law Firm, stopped by the studio to talk about the process you can expect when coming to Sweeney Law Firm to pursue a claim. You can catch Daren, along with other guests, on ABC’s INsight. 

Access the video transcript here or download the full transcript here.

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Tony Betton (00:00:00:00 – 00:00:15:18): Hey, everyone. Welcome back. You are watching inside right now. We are here with attorney Darren Niemi, with Sweeney Law Firm, to be able to continue our discussion on medical malpractice. Now, Darren, again, it’s a pleasure to be able to be here as we continue this conversation and discuss what exactly is medical malpractice.

Tony Betton (00:00:15:18 – 00:00:26:02): I wanted to be able to know more about the process. Right. So being able to figure out how to pursue this claim, because I’m sure it’s a lot of steps and a lot of things that go into it. Tell me a little bit more about the process.

Daren Niemi (00:00:26:02 – 00:00:36:21): Absolutely, Tony. So the process starts when we initially get contacted by either a patient or their family who have questions about the medical care that they have received.

Daren Niemi (00:00:36:22 – 00:00:52:18): So what we do is we schedule an interview and we ask them to provide as much information as they can, as they have at that time. Now, oftentimes they don’t have all the information with them, but we try and get as much information at that time.

Tony Betton (00:00:52:18 – 00:01:00:13): Now, when it comes to certain circumstances that people are maybe dealing with, what are some of the circumstances that people could possibly come in contact with?

Tony Betton (00:01:00:18 – 00:01:04:02): Like you said, I mean, it’s a lot of medical records that you guys are dealing with.

Daren Niemi (00:01:04:02 – 00:01:31:16): Absolutely. So, again, when we have to pursue these claims, what we are looking for is what is contained in the medical records. So after we’ve had that that interview with the clients to look through to get that information, we get the medical records and now the medical records are going to have all the information that we need so that we can send those out to our experts to review and let us know what exactly it is we are looking at in this specific circumstance.

Tony Betton (00:01:31:16 – 00:01:42:08): Okay. In those cases, I mean, is it difficult for people to try to be able to transfer those medical records? Is this just something that’s just too easy request or when it comes to the way that you guys are using them? Like you said, you have to go through a lot of information.

Daren Niemi (00:01:42:08 – 00:01:48:03): So absolutely, we do. And what we do is we actually get the medical records ourselves.

Daren Niemi (00:01:48:05 – 00:02:11:18): Once we compile all those records together, then we are able to send those off for physicians to review. It’s a very difficult process to do on your own. So that’s why we take we take the reins there and we go forward. We get our experts involved here early. We want to have them go through those those records and really point out in detail this is where something went wrong.

Daren Niemi (00:02:11:23 – 00:02:16:08): This is why it went wrong. And this is the effects that it had. Yeah,

Tony Betton (00:02:16:08 – 00:02:28:22): you mentioned it being a difficult process. So if someone is saying, hey, is this going to be something that’s a speedy process? Is this going to be something that I can get taken care of rather quickly? I guess it could kind of vary depending on the severity of the case, depending on how many records.

Tony Betton (00:02:29:02 – 00:02:35:07): But if someone’s coming in saying, how difficult is this process? We know that it is difficult, but what can they look forward to having to deal with?

Daren Niemi (00:02:35:07 – 00:02:44:00): Well, we fight. Okay. This is not an automobile accident claim where I just get to send off a letter to an insurance company. We are dealing with hospitals. We are dealing with doctors.

Daren Niemi (00:02:44:00 – 00:03:03:18): They are going to fight us tooth and nail every step of the way. And so at that time, it’s not something that we are going to be able to resolve just in a matter of weeks here. This takes time to build the case. We have to build it up from every step. And we do that. And we have a good record of success because of how we know how to handle these claims.

Tony Betton (00:03:03:20 – 00:03:18:01): Wow, that’s a lot of information. Is it? Definitely some hard truth in there, but important to be able to address this is not going to be an easy process. May be difficult. It may take some time. Anything, lastly, that you want to kind of want to tack on or add on when it comes to the process of medical malpractice?

Daren Niemi (00:03:19:01 – 00:03:29:15): Absolutely. I would just say give us the opportunity to work those claims and be patient with us. Again, these are difficult claims and they take time, but we succeed in them.

Tony Betton (00:03:29:15 – 00:03:34:06): Yeah, allow some time, have that trust and know that getting the job done. Thank you so much, dear. We appreciate you.

Daren Niemi (00:03:34:06 – 00:03:35:02): I appreciate it, Tony.

Tony Betton (00:03:35:02 – 00:03:37:09): Everyone, take a look at your screen right now.

Tony Betton (00:03:37:09 – 00:03:48:06): You can find out more information about any law firm breaking down the process of medical malpractice. If you feel like this is something that you may be dealing with, you’ve got some questions. Go ahead. Reach out. We’ll be right back.

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Shifting Paradigms: Speed Trial and Damages – A Webinar with Joe Fried

3 Hours CLE/ Distance Education

Program Chair: David Farnbauch, Sweeney Law Firm

October 28th

9:00 am – 12:00 pm ET

Online Seminar Agenda

Speed Trial:

• Our present paradigm
  • Why does it take so long to try a case to a jury?
  • Is there a correlation between the length of a trial and the verdict amount?
  • How do fear and limiting beliefs play into our trial strategy and presentation?
  • Is there a good reason to explore other paradigms?
• What if we could work from a new paradigm
  • Identify what the case needs to be about and what we need to prove to win
  • Get to the point(s) quickly with less fluff
  • Present fewer witnesses
  • Present fewer points
  • Could this work?
• Examples of cases
• How the new paradigm works in practice:
  • Discussion about identifying what the case needs to be about
  • Discussion about identifying the few critical points for a case
  • Discussion about editing facts, limiting the number of issues and number of witnesses
  • Discussion about editing content for each witness
  • How to make it easy for jurors to get the point
  • Outlines for specific types of witnesses
    • Liability witness (police officer, eye-witness, expert)
    • Medical Summary Witness
    • Doctor
    • Life Care Planner
    • Economist
    • Before and after witness
    • Client
  • Jury Selection
  • Opening Statement

Talking About Damages:

• What is your current damages paradigm
  • Where did it originate?
  • What limiting beliefs control you?
  • Are those limiting beliefs true?
• Who gets to decide what a case is worth?

• What is the damages story in your case?
  • Injury cases
  • Death cases
• Best uses of jury charges to aid in damages presentation
• Understanding why talking about money is so difficult
• How do you know the number is the right number to ask for?
• New ways to talk about money
• Economic damages: Drop them or not?
• Anchoring
• Talking about money in jury selection, opening, witnesses and closing
• Using surrogates at trial
• Other general food for thought

Joe Fried is regarded as one of the top truck crash lawyers in the country today. His passion for what he does is palpable, and his reputation speaks for itself. In addition to being one of the cop attorneys in the nation. Joe is a recognized highway safety advocate and educational leader, sharing his knowledge with other lawyers on how to maximize results in trucking litigation. He has litigated cases in more than 30 states with record results and has given over 300 presentations to lawyer, judge, and police audiences on trucking and trial-related topics.

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WANE 15 News discusses a new nursing home ruling in Indiana, with David Farnbauch, Managing Partner at Sweeney Law Firm in Fort Wayne. Read here for the full article. 

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How does a routine hernia surgery turn into a $41,000 medical bill? WANE 15 NEWS interviews David Farnbauch to shed some light on how this could happen and what you should do to avoid a situation like this.

Read more on this story here.

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David Farnbauch is set to speak at the May 2022 Indiana Trial Lawyers Association Lifetime Achievement seminar. He will be giving a presentation entitled  “YouTube – Mining the Gold”.

Read the seminar brochure for more details. 

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David Farnbauch was recently quoted by Buzzfeed News in an article detailing the VA medical malpractice cases involving Dr. Bradley Hammersley. Sweeney Law Firm is currently representing 33 of the cases being brought against Dr. Hammersley.

Read the Buzzfeed News article here. 

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David Farnbauch was a speaker at the Nursing Home Abuse Litigation session hosted by the Indiana Continuing Legal Education Forum. Farnbauch was one of many experts who spoke on the problems highlighted by COVID-19 and explaining the process of litigating long-term care liability claims while providing insights into the role of the legal system in protecting the elderly. 

The topics covered in this session included the following:

• Procedural Obstacles 
• Discovery Tips 
• Eliciting useful testimony 
• Expert Witness Depositions 
• Addressing defenses arising from COVlD-19

View the full details of the session.

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Settlements have started being made in a number of lawsuits filed by past patients against doctor Hammersley. David Farnbauch and Sweeney Law Firm have handled about 30 of the 50 malpractice cases and have began to see settlements being reached and mediation conversations happening. According to Farnbauch, 127 of Hammersley’s 415 procedures were found to not meet the standard of care.

Learn more about the case.

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David Farnbauch was quoted in a New York Times cover story about hospitals profiting from accident victims. Monica Smith was rushed to Parkview Regional Medical Center after a car accident where she spent 3 days in the hospital and weeks in a neck brace. Instead of sending her $2,500 hospital bill that Medicaid would have paid in full, Parkview pursued a lien of $12,856 from Smith directly. Parkview is one of many major health systems that bypass insurers to pursue full charges and have seen many legal litigations as a result. Parkview continues to seek payment from victims arguing that Medicaid coverage is not insurance. Farnbauch stated in the article “Other hospitals don’t do this – they abide by the law”.

Read more about Parkview profiting from accident victims.

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