Atlanta Firm Snares $1.5 Million Malpractice Victory
By Regina Lynch-Hudson
Special to the Atlanta Daily World
Gaining restitution for clients such as Sabrina Gibbs is the forte of Atlanta law firm Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson and Patterson.
When the jury ruled in Gibbs' favor on Nov. 5, awarding the 34-year-old housewife, and her husband a $1.5 million verdict against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia, Inc., in connection with the stillborn birth of their son. The verdict followed eight days of trial and five hours of deliberation.
The homemaker says that she felt closure after a five-year spiritual warfare that ended within days of the anniversary date of her son's stillbirth.
"Though the cradles of my firstborn son can never be filled, I now have answers," says Gibbs.
Gibbs reflects back on what she calls the most difficult period of her life, which began on April 9, 1993, when the plaintiff was seen in an office of Kaiser Permanente, her family's health care provider.
After being given a urine pregnancy test, which yielded a favorable positive reading, Gibbs says that immediate concerns set in.
"I was told that I would be seen by at least seven different doctors throughout my pregnancy, and I wondered how seven different doctors would get to know me," she said. Her wariness apparently was warranted.
In early September 1993, Gibbs was administered a three-hour glucose test to determine if she were diabetic. She tested positive for gestational diabetes, a high sugar condition that often develops in pregnant women.
Though Gibbs' physicians assured her that there was no reason for concern, she maintains that there was vague communication about her condition, even after she was eventually prescribed insulin.
During the early morning of Nov. 7, 1993, Gibbs noticed that her baby was not moving, and she became alarmed. After calling the Kaiser Permanente Advice Line, she was advised to check into the labor and delivery immediately.
When Gibbs and her husband arrived at Georgia Baptist Hospital, they were informed that their baby had died. Gibbs states that doctors initially "left me hanging," providing no answers to her many questions.
Later, she recalls that Kaiser's chief of staff spoke ambiguously, after discovering that particular test results were lacking in her records. Six grueling days later, labor was induced, and Gibbs delivered a five pound, eight ounce nonviable fetus that the world would have come to know as Norman Leroy Gibbs, Jr.
Gibbs says that she took over a year to grieve, and to seek spiritual direction in coping with her son's death before contracting the services of one of the nation's largest black law firms, headed by attorney Thomas G. Sampson. The firm had a national reputation for balancing the scales of justice, particularly in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases.
Under the direction of Sampson, and law partner Jeffrey E. Tompkins, a medical malpractice laweult against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia and Gibbs' doctors was filed in the State Court of Fulton County, on Oct 13, 1995.
Armed with expert witnesses that included a maternal fetal medicine specialist, a pathologist, and OB/GYN specialist, the plaintiffs' legal duo was able to prove that physicians deviated from the standard care generally employed by health care providers in treating women with Gibbs condition, and argued that the physicians failed to provide timely and appropriate antenatal testing to Gibbs.
Gibbs says that though the reward doesn't replace the life of her husband's namesake, nor ease the pain felt by the couple and their families, it will pave the future for the two children that were born during the span of the case. The births of three-year old Terry Norman, and one-year old Taylor Janae occurred under the medical coverage of an alternate HMO which unlike Kaiser, allows patients to use private physicians.
The Gibbs' $1.5 million verdict is one of many garnered by Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson & Patterson. Sampson orchestrated the firm's prosecution of Atlanta's prominent Northside Hospital in a botched circumcision case, which resulted in loss of an infant's penis, securing a $22.8 million dollar structured settlement. The firm set a record in 1988 after winning a $1 million-dollar verdict on behalf of two black deaf girls who were allegedly molested on a school bus outing. It was then the highest verdict against the State of Georgia.