Trial Magazine

Arleisha Hayes, 44, suffered from asthma. When she experienced shortness of breath, she was taken by ambulance to Hialeah Hospital. She was admitted to the facility’s ICU and given a nasal swab, which showed no infection. For the next several days, Hayes was treated with steroids and antibiotics. She improved somewhat and was transferred to a telemetry floor.

There, she developed severe shortness of breath and chest pain, prompting a nurse to call for a rapid response. House physician Xavier Ramos, a medical school graduate who was not licensed to practice medicine, ordered a STAT chest X-ray and transferred Hayes back to the ICU. She became tachycardic, and another house physician called for a second rapid response. A pulmonologist ordered vancomycin for treatment of hospital-acquired MRSA. Despite this treatment, Hayes suffered cardiac arrest and died later that day. She is survived by her three minor children.

One of Hayes’s sons, on behalf of her estate, sued the hospital’s owner and operator, alleging it had a policy of placing unlicensed house physicians with inadequate training and experience in charge of critically ill patients and did not properly supervise these physicians. The plaintiff also alleged failure to properly treat pneumonia and a hospital-acquired MRSA infection with vancomycin and Zosyn. Suit did not claim lost income.

The jury awarded $15 million.

Citation: Hayes-Boursiquot v. Hialeah Hosp., Inc., No. 2015-024325-CA 01 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Miami-Dade Cty. Sept. 27, 2019).

Plaintiff counsel: Alan Goldfarb and David Appleby, both of Miami.

Plaintiff experts: Charles Grodzin, critical care, Atlanta; and Susan Abookire, patient safety, Boston.