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Brown v. Contemporary OB/GYN Associates3/27/2002
This appeal arises from the unfortunate death of a baby girl who was born prematurely in May 1994 to Folake Odejinmi Brown and Richard Afolabi Brown, M.D., appellants, at Holy Cross Hospital of Silver Spring, Inc. (the "Hospital" or "Holy Cross"). On May 9, 1997, appellants filed a malpractice claim with the Maryland Health Claims Arbitration Office.
After arbitration was waived, appellants filed a five-count complaint on December 10, 1997, in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. The suit named sixteen defendants, including Contemporary OB/GYN Associates ("Contemporary"), the obstetrical practice that cared for Ms. Brown; Contemporary's individual physicians and their respective professional associations; Holy Cross; and two of the Hospital's nurses, all appellees herein. Appellants sought compensatory and punitive damages of $20 million in connection with their claims for wrongful death (Count I); a survival action (Count II); health care malpractice (Count III); breach of contract (Count IV); and intentional infliction of emotional distress (Count V).
Prior to trial, the circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of Holy Cross, Dr. Jeffrey Levitt, Dr. Goldberg, Dr. Brooks, and the two nurses, McKibben and Craddock. As to Contemporary, Dr. Donald Levitt, Dr. Goodman, and Dr. Rosenblatt, the court granted summary judgment as to the claims of wrongful death, the survival action, and punitive damages.
Thereafter, the court bifurcated the issues of liability and damages. Accordingly, as to the remaining defendants, the case proceeded to trial on liability in June 1999 (Mason, J.), with respect to the claims of health care malpractice and intentional infliction of emotional distress. At the trial, Newton Osborne, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Howard University Hospital ("Howard" or "Howard Hospital"), and chairman of the Department from 1994 to 1997, testified as an expert for appellants. After the court determined that he offered an opinion that had not been previously disclosed to opposing counsel, the court granted a mistrial. A second trial, as to both liability and damages, commenced in January 2000 (Woodward, J.). It, too, ended in a mistrial, apparently because a juror overheard certain comments by a lawyer representing the Hospital.
In the meantime, after the second trial, and without appellants' knowledge, Dr. Osborne's employer, Howard Hospital, retained H. Kenneth Armstrong, Esq., to represent Dr. Osborne in a medical malpractice action filed again him and others in the District of Columbia (the "Singleton" case). At that time, Armstrong was also the attorney for Contemporary and its physicians in this case (hereinafter sometimes referred to as the "Brown" case). Nevertheless, Dr. Osborne and Armstrong did not plan to meet to discuss the Singleton case until after the trial in the Brown matter was completed. As a result of the second mistrial, that matter did not end when anticipated. Nevertheless, prior to the third attempt to try the underlying case, Armstrong met with Dr. Osborne to discuss the Singleton litigation.
After the commencement of the third trial in March 2000, appellants learned that Armstrong represented Dr. Osborne in the Singleton matter. During the course of the third trial, appellants also learned that Dr. Osborne was out of the country and unavailable to testify as their expert. They also discovered that Armstrong knew that Dr. Osborne would be unavailable at that time, yet had failed to disclose that information to appellants. The court (John McAuliffe, J.) attributed Dr. Osborne's unavailability to appellants' failure to subpoena the doctor, but permitted appellants to put in evidence t
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
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