Attorney Fee Denied in Multi-Million Dollar Medical Malpractice Settlement

The matter of Chen v. Mt. Sinai was handled by attorney Steven F. Goldman, and settled just after depositions for $ 2.4 million.  Mt. Sinai was represented by Martin Clearwater & Bell, a premiere NY med-mal defense firm.  One would think that was good news for Mr. Goldman.  However, he ends up, after a Second Circuit decision, with no fee at all.  Legal Malpractice litigation might follow had he garnered a fee.  It might still if one scrutinizes the question of whether sufficient provision was made for a severely injured child. From the opinion: "The circuit noted that Mr. Goldman provided no real assistance to Judge Korman in his effort to determine whether the settlement was reasonable."Equally disturbing, the record suggests that Goldman himself had made only limited inquiries into David's condition and the nature and extent of David's future medical needs,"

Law.Com writes: "A federal judge acted within his authority when he denied all fees to a lawyer who won a $2.4 million medical malpractice case but who failed to investigate the future needs of a child disabled at birth and overcharged his client, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday upheld the discretion of Eastern District Judge Edward Korman to refuse Steven F. Goldman's application for $388,000 in fees.
 
Mr. Goldman obtained a settlement with the Mt. Sinai-NYU Medical Center Health Systems, NYU Downtown Hospital and the doctors involved. He then filed a stipulation of settlement and infant compromise order directing that he be paid $408,000 in fees and $20,000 in expenses, and that Ms. Chen be paid $250,000 for her loss of services claim, and $1.7 million as trustee for her son's special needs trust.

But Judge Korman said he was unable to analyze the reasonableness of the settlement because Mr. Goldman failed to provide documentation for his fees and for David's current medical condition and a projection of his expenses for future medical care.

Saying the attorney's information was "totally unhelpful," the judge appointed a special master, attorney Steven North, who was told by Mr. Goldman that he had applied the sliding scale fee system set forth in New York Judiciary Law §474-a for medical malpractice compensation.
When Mr. North inquired as to the fee, Mr. Goldman claimed he had miscalculated it under the sliding scale, and it was actually $388,000."
 
Death in Iraq, Blackwater and Legal Malpractice

Law.Com reports [as does the BLT Blog] that a legal malpractice case by Blackwater Security Consulting has been dismissed, now for the second time against Wiley Rein.   The legal malpractice case arises from the horrible death of Blackwater employees in Falugia, Iraq.
The fact of deaths in Iraq ending in US litigation brings to mind a recent speech which attributed the idea to Alexis de Tocqueville that all serious issues in the US ultimately end in courts.  If it ends in court, look for legal malpractice litigation to follow.

"On Dec. 29, Judge Jennifer Anderson of D.C. Superior Court dismissed the $30 million malpractice suit brought against the firm by Blackwater Security Consulting on summary judgment. She's the second judge to throw out the case since it was filed last January.
"They have the right to ask more judges to look at it," says Zuckerman Spaeder partner Mark Foster, who represents Wiley Rein in the matter. But if Blackwater's lawyer, Barry Nace of Paulson & Nace, chooses to do so, Foster says, "I think he'd be wasting his time." (Nace is on overseas travel and could not immediately be reached for comment.)
Blackwater alleged that Wiley botched its defense of the security contractor in a wrongful death case brought on behalf of four Blackwater guards killed in Iraq in 2004. Blackwater claimed the suit would have been dismissed if it had been heard in federal court, instead of in a North Carolina trial court. Blackwater said the Wiley lawyers failed to get a venue change because they didn't invoke the federal officer removal statute, which grants federal jurisdiction to claims involving federal officers."