Medical malpractice trial lost with $217 Million verdict, which could have been settled within policy limits for $ 4 million leads to a legal malpractice by doctor versus attorney. This article tells us:

"Among the claims against their former lawyers was the fact their lawyers turned down settlement offers of $1,000,000.00 for one doctor and $3,000,000.00 for the other doctor. The doctors claim that the proposed settlements were never adequately explained to them. The doctors say that their attorneys failed to properly advise them, fraudulently concealed information, and failed to respond to settlement demands.

The doctors’ new lawyers who are suing their former malpractice defense lawyers state that the case should have never gone to trial, that it should have been settled, and claim that the doctors were "hung out to dry."

The malpractice case against the doctors seems clear. Their patient went to a hospital emergency room complaining of nausea, headache, dizziness, and double vision. The patient was essentially sent home five hours later with a painkiller prescription and a diagnosis of sinusitis. "

lthough the defendant doctors could not diagnose the condition, the patient in reality was having a stroke. He returned to the hospital with more severe symptoms the next morning, underwent surgery hours later to relieve brain swelling, and ended up in a coma for three months. When he awoke from the coma, he was permanently disabled. The patient, who was 50-years-old at the time was awarded $117,000,000.00 for economic damages, pain, and suffering. The doctors were then ordered to pay $100.1 million dollars in punitive damages. This was the largest jury verdict in Florida ever.

In the doctors’ suit against their former malpractice lawyers, they claim that the lawyers who were hired by their malpractice insurance company were protecting the interest of the insurance company and not theirs. One of the doctors said he was pressured by the lawyers to say that he always gave a patient a physical exam and a patient history even if such an examination was previously performed by a physician’s assistant. This doctor said he did not perform physicals on patients who had already been seen by a physician’s assistant and that he did not remember personally examining the patient who sued him for malpractice. In spite of being informed by the doctors of the truth, the insurance company’s lawyers continued denying that anyone except the doctor was involved in the patient’s care and treatment

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Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened…

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened his private law office and took his first legal malpractice case.

Since 1989, Bluestone has become a leader in the New York Plaintiff’s Legal Malpractice bar, handling a wide array of plaintiff’s legal malpractice cases arising from catastrophic personal injury, contracts, patents, commercial litigation, securities, matrimonial and custody issues, medical malpractice, insurance, product liability, real estate, landlord-tenant, foreclosures and has defended attorneys in a limited number of legal malpractice cases.

Bluestone also took an academic role in field, publishing the New York Attorney Malpractice Report from 2002-2004.  He started the “New York Attorney Malpractice Blog” in 2004, where he has published more than 4500 entries.

Mr. Bluestone has written 38 scholarly peer-reviewed articles concerning legal malpractice, many in the Outside Counsel column of the New York Law Journal. He has appeared as an Expert witness in multiple legal malpractice litigations.

Mr. Bluestone is an adjunct professor of law at St. John’s University College of Law, teaching Legal Malpractice.  Mr. Bluestone has argued legal malpractice cases in the Second Circuit, in the New York State Court of Appeals, each of the four New York Appellate Divisions, in all four of  the U.S. District Courts of New York and in Supreme Courts all over the state.  He has also been admitted pro haec vice in the states of Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida and was formally admitted to the US District Court of Connecticut and to its Bankruptcy Court all for legal malpractice matters. He has been retained by U.S. Trustees in legal malpractice cases from Bankruptcy Courts, and has represented municipalities, insurance companies, hedge funds, communications companies and international manufacturing firms. Mr. Bluestone regularly lectures in CLEs on legal malpractice.

Based upon his professional experience Bluestone was named a Diplomate and was Board Certified by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys in 2008 in Legal Malpractice. He remains Board Certified.  He was admitted to The Best Lawyers in America from 2012-2019.  He has been featured in Who’s Who in Law since 1993.

In the last years, Mr. Bluestone has been featured for two particularly noteworthy legal malpractice cases.  The first was a settlement of an $11.9 million dollar default legal malpractice case of Yeo v. Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman which was reported in the NYLJ on August 15, 2016. Most recently, Mr. Bluestone obtained a rare plaintiff’s verdict in a legal malpractice case on behalf of the City of White Plains v. Joseph Maria, reported in the NYLJ on February 14, 2017. It was the sole legal malpractice jury verdict in the State of New York for 2017.

Bluestone has been at the forefront of the development of legal malpractice principles and has contributed case law decisions, writing and lecturing which have been recognized by his peers.  He is regularly mentioned in academic writing, and his past cases are often cited in current legal malpractice decisions. He is recognized for his ample writings on Judiciary Law § 487, a 850 year old statute deriving from England which relates to attorney deceit.