Cheromiah v. United States, 55 F.Supp. 2d 1295 (D.N.M. 1999).

Twenty-year-old Michael Cheromiah sought treatment for severe chest pain at Acoma-Laguna-Canoncito Hospital five times over 4 days. Instead of performing the appropriate tests or treating his condition, hospital personnel repeatedly sent him home. The last nurse he saw said he was acting like a “wimp.” When he collapsed at home and was taken by ambulance to an Albuquerque hospital, he was discovered to have fluid around his heart causing a pericardial tamponade. Tragically, it was diagnosed too late to save his life. Michael died on the operating table on November 4, 1995. In this Federal Tort Claims Act case, the federal judge adopted our position and became the first judge in the country to find that tribal law, rather than state law applied to bad acts committed on reservation land. The case settled with an agreement that the government would provide an additional $75,000 to train emergency room personnel at ACL to better recognize life-threatening conditions.

Past successes cannot be an assurance of future success because each case must be decided on its own merits.

Fox v. St. Joseph's Healthcare.

George Fox was treated at St. Joseph’s Hospital for evaluation of a problem with his heart.  Eleven days later, he died of a condition he did not have when he entered the hospital -- Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome (NMS).   This fatal disease was caused by the doctors' administration of the prescription drug "Haldol.”  Rather than take him off the Haldol once the symptoms of NMS appeared, George’s physician increased his dosage and George died 5 days later.  We sued the hospital on behalf of George Fox’s widow and, while the lawsuit didn’t remove the pain Sonia felt from her loss, made changes that will prevent such treatment from happening to future patients.

Past successes cannot be an assurance of future success because each case must be decided on its own merits.