January 26, 2006
Dauphin County, Pennsylvania

Daniel L. Grill (Harrisburg) recently obtained a defense verdict on behalf of Defendant.  The case was tried the week of January 23, 2006 before The Honorable Jeannine Turgeon and the jury of twelve in Harrisburg, Dauphin County Pennsylvania.  

TT&H represented a Harrisburg area general surgeon who performed a bowel resection for treatment of acute uncomplicated diverticulitis.  Plaintiff claimed that surgery should probably not be done, but in the rare instance it were to be done, surgery should be performed only after a minimum of six to eight weeks had passed in order to allow the acute diverticulitis to “cool down.”

Defendant surgeon performed the surgery five days after the patient’s presentation to the emergency room.  A defense expert colorectal surgery specialist from Hershey Medical Center testified that the Defendant’s care was within accepted standards because, while this surgery was somewhat aggressive, it was justified because the patient was youthful and had recurrent diverticulitis.

Even the Plaintiff expert conceded that it was statistically probable that the patient, if not operated, would go on to have other bouts of diverticulitis which carried a 60% chance of being complicated diverticulitis and a 2% to 10% risk of death. 

The Defendant surgeon testified that he offered the patient the option of surgery only after balancing the risks of doing the surgery against the risks of not doing the surgery and after also concluding that there was no increased risk to the patient over and above the risk that would be present if the surgery was done at a later time.