Law Offices Of Patrick J. Filan PC

A CT mom most loved spending time with family. She died due to a hospital food mistake, they claim

2026-05-21T15:29:47Z

Breaking News Dog rescued from fire that extended to two Hartford homes, displacing 19 people Read More

Liability of Ambulances and Emergency Providers in CTLA FORUM Fall 2021 Issue

2022-10-06T09:24:19Z

A Bronx jury awarded $172 million dollars in a lawsuit against the New York City Fire Department Bureau of Emergency Medical Services. The case arose from a 1998 incident that left 12-year-old Tiffany Applewhite paralyzed, with severe brain damage and unable to speak. The claims against the emergency providers included their failure to have proper equipment on hand to treat... Read More

Requests for Admission: A Primer on Their Power and Effective Use in CTLA FORUM Fall 2020 Issue

2022-10-06T09:25:58Z

According to the Practice Book, the purpose of requests for admission is "to facilitate proof with respect to issues that cannot be eliminated from the case and,...to narrow the issues by eliminating those that can be. Put more plainly, requests for admission are incredibly powerful arrows in your quiver that may be used to establish specified facts, obtain admissions of... Read More

9 Resources for Investigating the Reputation of your Doctors

2022-01-28T22:20:11Z

Below you’ll find resources that can assist you in avoiding medical attention from care practitioners with records of providing negligent or damaging care:

1. Find out if he or she is board certified. A doctor who is a medical school graduate and has a license to practice can hold himself out as a cardiologist, a neurosurgeon, or any type of specialist he/she wants. A board certified specialist is one who has successfully completed post-graduate residency training at a hospital, often affiliated with a medical school and passed an examination in his or her specialty. Medical specialty certification in the United States is a voluntary process. While medical licensure sets the minimum competency requirements to diagnose and treat patients, it is not specialty specific. Board certification demonstrates a physician’s expertise in a particular specialty and/or subspecialty of medical practice. You can verify whether a physician is board certified by visiting the American Board of Medical Specialties website. 2. Research whether he or she has ever been sanctioned by the state licensing board. Review the medical examining board directory for your state. The Connecticut Department of Public Health allows site visitors to look up a doctor’s credentials and find out if he or she has ever been sanctioned. Sanctions include a reprimand, placing a doctor on probation requiring continuing education, suspension, and revocation of a medical license. 3. Verify whether he or she has been sued for malpratice or misdiagnosis or negligence. The Connecticut Judicial website offers general information about lawsuits including medical malpractice cases. 4. Investigate whether your doctor is well renowned in the medical field. Doctor’s who have published medical field research can be identified by visiting PubMed. 5. Visit your doctor’s hospital webpage to gain a clearer understanding of their medical team. Doctors who work under a hospital tend to refer their patients to other doctors within the hospital’s network. Depending on your medical history it may be worth spending a few minutes to read more about the medical research, and initiatives of their medical specialty teams. 6. Below are some sites that offer patient reviews which may be of some use: Healthgrades Healthgrades gives you access to a comprehensive database of local hospitals and doctors who have been rated by other patients. What makes this tool so much more powerful than the average health directory is that it also allows users to easily find doctor’s who are the most experienced in treating a specific health condition or medical procedure. ZocDoc ZocDoc allows people in select cities to not only access patient reviews, but also to schedule appointments with local doctors from their website or mobile app. You can search through their directory of doctors, practices and hospitals and see their real-time availability, accepted insurance providers, real-time availability and procedural related rankings. Their service has yet to expand to Connecticut, but it is widely available across New York (where it was founded) and certain areas of New Jersey. Yelp Most people associate Yelp with finding a new restaurant or local salon, but many don’t realize that you can search for medical professionals by specialty. Many practices have garnered reviews from local Yelp users over the years. While the quantity of reviews aren’t as expansive as on aforementioned health specific directories, you can still do a quick Yelp search to ensure that a practice you’ve identified doesn’t have any glaring red flags. Whether you’re looking for a second opinion or specialty doctor for you or your loved ones, it’s always a great idea to take a couple of minutes to research the doctors in your area before deciding on which to use. While this may not be enough to keep you from ever receiving medical treatment that does not adhere to the medical community’s standards of care, this quick step can lessen your chances of being in a situation where you may need to take legal action against a health care provider.

Uninsured, Underinsured Motorist Claims

2022-01-28T22:30:00Z

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage protects you if you’re in a car accident with an at-fault driver who doesn’t carry any liability insurance an at-fault driver whose liability limits are too low to cover your damages, expenses, and injuries. The risk that is protected by uninsured and underinsured motorists coverage is the risk that an at-fault driver who crashes into you will have no or inadequate insurance coverage. Some estimates place the number of drivers who fail to carry any auto insurance as high as 20%. Other drivers may carry only the state minimum of $20,000. That means if you are in a collision you have a 20% chance that the other driver will carry no insurance. Beyond that there’s a substantial chance the other driver will have only $20,000 in liability insurance – the state mandated minimum. 2 or 3 days in the hospital could exceed $20,000. You need to protect yourself by having adequate uninsured motorists coverage. How much is adequate? If you have $1,000,000 in liability coverage available to compensate a person that is injured if you are at-fault, it stands to reason that you should have the same amount – $1 million – to cover you if you are hit by someone with no or minimum insurance. Some of the situations where you will be covered by uninsured / underinsured motorists insurance include: – When you are driving and are injured by an uninsured or underinsured driver; – When you are a passenger in a vehicle; – When you are a pedestrian; – When you are riding a bike; and – When you are jogging.

6 Things to Know about Medical Malpractice in the Emergency Room

2023-01-05T19:38:20Z

Updated 1/5/2023 1. Emergency room medical providers are held to the same standards of care as other doctors and care givers. Emergency rooms are busy places where very important decisions are made. The emergency room team is made up of emergency physicians, nurses and other health care providers who decide whether a patient gets immediate testing, admission to the hospital, or waits for hours with no meaningful treatment. This team has a responsibility to stabilize the patient, diagnose a patient’s condition or injury, request evaluation by specialists, determine what treatment a patient needs, and how quickly that treatment must be rendered. Every year, however, hundreds of people are sent home from hospital emergency rooms only to die or suffer serious permanent injury from the very ailment they complained of to the hospital emergency room. In these cases the failure of the emergency room doctors and medical personnel to properly diagnose and treat the ailment may be a result of substandard care. Emergency room providers are held to the same standards as other doctors and care givers. These care givers are liable when their care falls below accepted standards. The standard of care is defined as what a similar health care provider would do under similar circumstances. Proper treatment may require an emergency room physician to order testing such as an electro cardiogram (EKG), MRI, CT scan, or other testing, or to request that specialists such as a cardiologist or neurologist evaluate the patient. Read Mr. Filan's medical malpractice success stories

2. To prevail in a medical malpractice case involving medical care rendered in an emergency department the patient must prove that a competent doctor under similar circumstances would not have made the same mistake — this is called negligence.

Emergency department negligence occurs when the doctors and nurses in question don’t pay enough attention, ignore the patient, or fail to order proper testing or consult with specialists. Doctors and nurses are individually liable for their own acts and omissions. Hospitals are liable for acts and omissions of their employees which may include nurses and emergency department physicians. Hospitals may also be liable for the acts and omissions of private, non-employee physicians and other health care providers under agency theories. This is because the hospital provides the emergency physicians to the patient and the patient may not be aware that the emergency physician is an independent contractor who is not employed by the hospital. 3. Mistakes made in emergency rooms are just as grave as those made in calm situations.

Decisions in the emergency room are often of critical importance. Errors in the emergency department may carry grave consequences to the patient. Some examples of emergency department hospital malpractice cases our firm has handled include:

– Failure to diagnose and treat impending heart attack, – Failure to diagnose and treat head injury such as subdural hematoma, – Failure to diagnose and treat spinal cord injury, – Failure to diagnose and treat perforated bowel, and – Administration of improper medications. The defense often argues that because the emergency room does not allow for the calm consideration available in other medical situations, a mistake must be fairly severe to rise to the level of negligence. A skilled malpractice trial attorney can defeat that defense by pointing out that a careful evaluation of the emergency patient is always required. Read about medical malpractice attorney Patrick J. Filan

4. To be liable for medical malpractice, errors in the emergency department must be shown to have caused an injury and worsened the patient’s outcome.

To prevail in a medical malpractice case involving emergency department care there must be proof that had proper care been provided, the patient would not have suffered injury. It is not enough to show that the care rendered was substandard. If the outcome would have been the same then the patient cannot prevail. For example it may be below the standard of care not to order a CT or MRI for a patient who arrives at the ER with a head injury. Such testing may offer valuable information to assess whether there is bleeding in the brain and whether an operation to relieve that bleeding is required. If a day or 2 after being discharged from the emergency department without either test the patient sees another doctor who orders a CT or MRI, finds bleeding in the brain, and performs the same operation that could have been performed earlier in the ER, then the substandard care rendered in the emergency department may not have altered the patient’s outcome or caused an injury.

5. First responders are protected by law against medical malpractice claims.

Connecticut, like most states, has a statute that protects the “first responders” to medical emergencies, including ambulance crews, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians. Connecticut’s Good Samaritan Law immunizes medical personnel, persons trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, railroad companies and employees, and other appropriate personnel from lawsuits for damages incurred while administering emergency medical aid. Connecticut law also provides that a person licensed to practice medicine and surgery who “voluntarily and gratuitously” provides emergency medical care is not be liable for damages or personal injuries which result from acts or omissions by such person in rendering emergency care.

6. Emergency rooms can be held liable for medical malpractice by refusing to treat a patient.

Any hospital that receives Medicare funding (which most hospitals do) is subject to the rules of a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). Under EMTALA, the emergency room cannot turn anyone away, regardless of the person’s ability to pay. Instead, the emergency room must provide a medical screening of the injured person, and stabilize the person to the extent possible. Please contact attorney Patrick J. Filan in regards to medical practice in Connecticut and New York.

Using Life Care Plans to Maximize Financial Recovery

2021-11-02T20:36:33Z

We represent clients with severe permanent injuries that have life-altering effects. To maximize our clients’ financial recovery, we work with life care planners to lay out for the jury the cost and consequences of a life-altering injury. A life care plan is an integral part of improving the quality of life for an injured person. and Life care planners are typically health care professionals that detail the future medical, surgical, and rehabilitative costs in a catastrophic injury. A good life care plan is critical in maximizing a client’s financial recovery. It will lay out the costs of future medical, surgical, nursing, attendant, hospital, and rehabilitative care, prescription medications, and transportation costs for doctor visits. Where alterations to a home are required these costs are set out in the report. Jury awards are typically influenced and impressed by hard economic damages. The thought is that they are making a financial award to compensate an injured person for actual future costs as opposed to more subjective Non-economic awards such a “pain and suffering.” Life care plans can add millions of dollars to the value of a case.

The Importance of Adequate Uninsured / Underinsured Motorists Coverage

2022-01-28T21:45:02Z

I don’t sell insurance so I don’t get a commission when someone buys an insurance policy or increases their coverage. I do, however, represent people who have been injured due another person’s negligence. All too often after these clients come to my office we learn that the negligent party had no or inadequate insurance. In fact the mandatory minimum for auto insurance in Connecticut is only $20,000. In New York it is $25,000.

In other words if a loved one is killed or paralyzed in an automobile collision there may only be $20,000 to $25,000 in insurance coverage available to compensate them. That’s right if you or a loved one is killed, paralyzed, blinded, lose a limb, or hospitalized for months the most you will be able to recover from the at fault driver may only be $20,000 to $25,000. And there’s nothing illegal about that. In those situations the other driver will tender to your their insurance limits of $20,000 to $25,000. Then your lawyer will deduct a one-third fee plus any costs incurred and you will get the difference.

This is exactly what happened in Cincinnati, Ohio recently when Melinda Woodall a drug addict driving with no license, no insurance, and high on 10 different drugs killed cyclist Michael Prater. Prater, a 42 year old father of 2 young children was killed when Woodall ran him over and left the scene of the collision. Prater’s head crashed through Woodall’s windshield and his hair was found in her car. When she was apprehended 3 pill bottles were found in Woodall’s bra, and in her car was found 5 syringes with residue, a metal spoon, and a tourniquet that she admitted using for heroin, according to police. Because Woodall had no insurance the only available coverage for Prater and his family was $100,000 in uninsured motorists insurance available under Prater’s automobile policy. That’s right a 42 year old married father of 2 gets killed by a drug addict and his family gets $100,000, less attorney fees and costs. That’s why you need uninsured motorist limits equal to your liability limits. A person who carries $500,000 to $1,000,000 in liability insurance would have $500,000 to $1,000,000 available to compensate a person injured in an accident. With uninsured limits equal to their liability limits, that person would have $1,000,000 available to protect themselves and their family in the event of a collision with the likes of Melinda Woodall. Kudos to my law school classmate Steve Magas, the Ohio Bile Lawyer, who handled this case, recovered the maximum available for the Prater family, and even reduced his fee and set up trusts for Mr. Prater’s children.

What to Do When a Doctor Dismisses Your Health Concerns

2023-01-05T19:46:00Z

Updated 1/5/23

Medical practitioners fail to diagnose an illness or medical condition all too often. No matter a patient’s age or current health condition, an illness left undetected can take a financial, emotional and physical toll that could have been prevented.

Cancers and heart attacks are most frequently tried in medical malpractice lawsuits, because of the rapid speed with which a patient’s health can deteriorate. Severe conditions like hypertension and diabetes, however, are two of the most commonly undiagnosed illnesses.

There are many factors that hamper a doctor’s ability to speedily and correctly diagnose a patient’s illness or medical condition, including:

Common ailments such as headaches, can cause confusion
Patients already have various medical problems
Physician lacks the time or expertise to reach diagnosis
Specialists are consulted once symptoms become more extreme
Symptoms are similar with other, less severe medical conditions or illnesses
The ailment is rare

Understanding the common reasons that doctors fail to quickly and accurately diagnose a medical condition is the first step you can take to protect yourself from such suffering. If you are willing to assert to your doctor that your symptoms may be a sign of a medical condition or disease, there are also a handful of steps you can take to have your diagnosis reconsidered: 1. Journal your symptoms in detail Doctors have only 15 minutes to check up on and diagnose patients. Journal your symptoms each day so that doctors have more information at their disposal. Don’t rely on your memory to communicate the minor details that you can forget to mention during your appointment. 2. Come prepared with questions Ask doctors questions that will probe their willingness to consider whether you could have a more serious medical condition. Ask questions like “Could more than one disease cause the symptoms I’m experiencing?” 3. Do your research

Consult online medical health resources like Mayo Clinic to research your symptoms, and flag medical illnesses or conditions with symptoms that align with your own. Mention your concerns to your doctor.

4. Trust your gut If your doctor is unwilling to consider that you may be suffering from an illness that has not yet been discovered, be assertive in your request that they consider an alternative diagnosis or seek out a second opinion. Patients whose doctors fail to diagnose their condition due to negligence may be entitled to legal compensation if this failure put the patient in harm’s way by:

Exposing the patient to an excessively aggressive treatment that wouldn’t have been required if the correct medical condition or disease was diagnosed earlier
Exposing the patient to harmful treatments that were unnecessary given the true medical ailment
Performing unnecessary surgical procedures that could potentially result in disfiguration, scarring or further complications
Increasing the patient’s likelihood of experiencing complications
Increasing the likelihood of a patient’s death

Patrick J. Filan has more than a 30-year track record of success in civil and criminal litigation that has included million and multimillion dollar recoveries for individuals injured or killed as a result of medical malpractice, car accidents, falls, dangerous drugs, defective products, and in commercial disputes. Read about attorney Filan's success stories

5 Ways to Reduce Your Risk of Hospital Infection

2022-01-28T23:00:53Z

1. Familiarize yourself with the Safety Ratings & Infection Rates of Hospitals in your area There are many online resources giving insight into the safety performance and medical effectiveness of care practitioners from hospitals across the country. Connecticut residents can easily search through Connecticut’s hospital ratings. People across the nation can also access consumer reports on hospitals nationally.

Take your search a step further by consulting your state’s HAI (hospital associated infections) reporting. Connecticut residents can easily access and review HAI reports to decide on a preferred hospital for their family should they ever need to seek emergency hospital treatment.

2. Ask hospital staff and visitors to clean their hands and make sure they do it! This is the single most effective way of preventing infection while in the hospital setting. All caregivers should clean their hands before providing treatment. The debate is on as to whether alcohol-based hand cleaners or soaps are more effective at removing bacteria. Germs such as “C. Diff” can survive alcohol sanitizers, while alcohol based sanitizers kill most forms of bacteria. Either way, a good hand wash has a strong chance of lowering the your risk and that of your friends and family visiting you of contracting infections when receiving hospital treatment. Watch your doctor or healthcare providers to ensure they wash their hands. 3. Ask your doctor or care provider to wipe her/his stethoscope with alcohol Hospital caregivers are often time constrained, so much so that many don’t take the time to clean stethoscopes between patients. This poses a risk to patients given that they are often contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus and other dangerous bacteria. This simple precautionary measure can lessen your chances of contracting a bacterial infection from another patient. 4. If undergoing surgery, shower or bathe daily using chlorhexidine soap three days before surgery These soaps have been proven in numerous medical studies to decrease patient’s chances of contracting infections in hospital surgical units, and are available for purchase without prescription. 5. Avoid a urinary tract catheter whenever possible Urinary tract catheters are the most common cause of hospital infections. The tube allows urine to flow from your bladder outside of your body, and is typically provided in hospitals where staff lack the time to walk patients to the bathroom. If you must use one of these catheters as the hospital to remove it as soon as possible, as the time they are left in your body can also increase chances of acquiring infection.