Marc Zimet and Manuel Balam obtained a defense verdict in an eleven-day bench trial in Fresno, California on a claim for legal malpractice arising from an underlying medical malpractice arbitration against Kaiser.
Specifically, plaintiff claimed that our client failed to properly defend his interests by, among other things, withdrawing from plaintiff’s representation a week before the scheduled arbitration. Plaintiff alleged that after six years of treatment by Kaiser, Kaiser negligently failed to diagnose his interstitial lung disease, contracted from HIV. The misdiagnosis caused plaintiff to become comatose and nearly die.
Plaintiff demanded $1.7 million (due to the $250k cap on pain and suffering against a medical provider in California). The court concluded that although our client could have handled the Kaiser arbitration better, plaintiff had a complex presentation to Kaiser and thus plaintiff failed to prove that he would have achieved a better result in the underlying arbitration. Our client will be awarded costs, including expert fees as a result of an early statutory offer to compromise, served upon plaintiff at the inception of the claim.