Jeffrey Lasky (left) and Daniel Justus of Lasky Cooper Law. (Courtesy photo)

A Macon jury took just 30 minutes to award $12.5 million to a man whose doctor failed to diagnose a cancerous growth on his neck despite being provided an MRI indicating it could be malignant. 

The treating doctor admitted he never reviewed the MRI and to later performing a procedure that allowed cancerous fluid to leak into the patient's neck tissue.

When the cancer was finally diagnosed, the treatment required high levels of radiation that so damaged the man's jawbone, a portion had to be replaced with a steel plate, leaving him disfigured.

Lead plaintiffs attorney Jeffrey Lasky said there were repeated efforts to settle the case, but the insurer for the defendant doctor and his practice refused to engage in any serious discussion until the jury announced it had a verdict. 

"This is a case about MagMutual [insurance] not protecting their doctor," said Lasky, of Lasky Cooper Law in Savannah. "We mediated this case twice, and they never put up any kind of acceptable money. We had a lot of discussions, but they wouldn't engage in a high-low until the green light came on and the jury was coming back in."

By then, he said, it was too late.

"We could have settled this case well under the policy limit" of $4 million, said Lasky, who tried the case with firm colleagues Daniel Justus and Caitlyn Clark.

The defendant doctor and his practice are represented by partners Emmitte Griggs and Elizabeth Ford of Chambliss, Higdon, Richardson, Katz & Griggs in Macon, who did not respond to requests for comment.

Lasky's comments regarding the insurer were also forwarded to MagMutual chief legal officer Michael Markett and corporate development officer Ed Lynch, who did not respond to requests for comment. 

According to Lasky and court filings, the case began in 2012 when David Reise, a volunteer pilot who ferries patients for Angel Flight, was told by his flight adviser to have a lump on his neck checked out.

Reise, now 67, went to his primary care physician, who ordered an MRI and recommended he see a specialist. Reise went the next day to see Dr. Matthew Jerles at the ENT Center of Central Georgia in Macon.

Before his visit Reise, a retired chiropractor, faxed the MRI to Jerles office but, said Lasky, the doctor would later admit to not reviewing it. 

Thinking the growth was a cyst, Jerles lanced it and sent Reise home.

The lump continued to grow, and more than two months later Reise returned and Jerles surgically removed it. The lump ruptured during surgery "and spilled all this golden fluid into his neck," Lasky said. 

The lump was tested, and two weeks later the results showed it was cancerous.

That was when Jerles looked down Reise's throat and saw a tumor at the base of his tongue that was visible on the original MRI. It, too, was cancerous.

More than three months after his first trip to see Jerles, Reise went to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for treatment, where his mandible was subjected to extremely high radiation therapy that resulted in a condition known as osteoradionecrosis, in which the bone actually dies. 

Reise's left mandible was replaced with a prosthesis, which makes it extremely difficult to open his mouth normally or eat without spilling his food. Reise, formerly a gregarious single man with an active social life, is now reluctant to be seen in public or go to a restaurant, Lasky said. 

"His treating radiologist called him an oral cripple," said Lasky. "His injuries are catastrophic; he can't be intimate."

Reise sued Jerles and ENT Center in Bibb County State Court.  

There were two mediations before Roger Mills in Macon, including one shortly before trial, but Lasky said the parties were never close to an agreement. 

During a trial that began before Judge Sharell Lewis on Feb. 10, Lasky said Jerles admitted to violating the standard of care, but challenged the plaintiffs lawyers on causation and comparative negligence.

Among other things, defense filings challenge whether the increased radiation therapy was the proximate cause of Reise's osteoradionecrosis. There is also an assertion that—because of his medical background as a chiropractor—Reise should have made sure Jerles saw the MRI and reviewed it, and therefore he bore some comparative negligence for his injuries. 

Lasky said Reise's medical bills were about $140,000.

Lasky said key plaintiffs experts included video testimony by Reise's treating doctor, David Fuller, at M.D. Anderson and maxillofacial surgeon Robert Marx of the University of Miami, and live testimony by Daphne Haas-Kogan, chief of radiological oncology at Harvard Medical School.

The key defense expert was radiation oncologist Jimmy Caudell of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, Lasky said. 

In closing, Lasky said he suggested a range of damages to the jury.

"I said their expert charged $500 an hour, so a fair and reasonable figure for the rest of David's life might be $40 million," he said. "Then I also suggested maybe $2 million to $5 million."

The defense, Lasky said, "thought $350,000 to $450,000 was appropriate" as representing "two or three times his special damages."   

On Feb. 13, the jury took about 30 minutes to award $12.5 million, apportioning no liability to Reise.

"The jury decided causation and comparative fault very quickly," said Lasky. "They spent nearly the entire time talking about damages." 

Lasky said he was impressed with Lewis' handling of the case, noting that the judge was just appointed to the bench by Gov. Brian Kemp in December. 

"She did a really good job" on a very complex case, he said.