$800,000 Medical Malpractice Verdict | Stage 4 Bedsore | Northwell Health | Linden Law

What Happened

Our client was hospitalized at a Northwell Health facility in Queens, New York, undergoing life-saving medical treatment. Bedridden and dependent on hospital staff for all care, the patient was completely vulnerable to one of the most preventable harms in medicine: pressure ulcers.

The nursing staff failed to implement the basic protocols that exist for exactly this situation — routine repositioning, skin assessments, pressure-relieving surfaces, and wound monitoring. By the time the failure was recognized, our client had developed a Stage 4 pressure ulcer — the most severe classification, in which the wound penetrates through skin and tissue all the way to underlying bone, muscle, and tendon. Stage 4 ulcers are associated with life-threatening infection, sepsis, and permanent disfigurement. They do not happen by accident. They happen when a hospital fails its patient.

Where the Case Stood Before Jason Was Brought In

Northwell Health, one of the largest hospital systems in New York, took the position that it owed our client nothing. The offer: zero dollars. Their defense team calculated that the complexity of a medical malpractice case — the expert requirements, the lengthy litigation, the burden of proving nursing negligence against a well-funded institution — would deter the family from pushing forward.

Jason was brought in as trial counsel.

What Jason Did

Trying a medical malpractice case against Northwell Health is not a simple undertaking. The defense comes armed with institutional experts, internal protocols, and the argument that the patient’s underlying condition was to blame. Jason prepared and presented the case in Queens County Supreme Court, demonstrating through expert testimony and the medical record exactly where the standard of care was breached — and exactly what that breach cost our client.

The jury agreed. They returned a verdict of $800,000 in favor of our client.

Northwell offered nothing. A jury gave $800,000.

What This Case Demonstrates

This verdict matters because of what Northwell bet on. They bet that a $0 offer would hold — that the case wouldn’t go to trial, that the litigation would be too hard, or that a jury wouldn’t hold a major hospital system accountable for a bedsore sustained during life-saving care. That bet was wrong.

Hospitals have obligations to their patients that don’t pause because a patient is critically ill. In some ways, those obligations are higher for patients who cannot advocate for themselves. When those obligations are breached — when preventable harm is allowed to occur in a setting where it should never happen — the law provides a remedy. This verdict is that remedy.

If you or someone in your family developed a pressure ulcer, wound infection, or other preventable injury during a hospital stay, call Linden Law. These cases require an attorney who will go to trial when the hospital refuses to do right by its patients.