A Fulton County jury found no liability on the part of a long-term care facility and its staff physician accused of allowing an elderly patient to suffer for three days after he swallowed a dental bridge, which the plaintiffs said contributed to his death a few months later.

The defense said there will be more litigation as their clients pursue attorney fees. A statement from Carlton Fields, where Christopher Freeman and Justan Bounds are based in the Atlanta office, said they will seek almost $500,000 in attorney fees because the plaintiff turned down an offer to settle the case for an undisclosed sum in 2015.

Matthew Alford of LaGrange's Willis McKenzie, who represented the doctor with firm colleague Mark Degennaro, said he also will seek some of his client's fees based on a frivolous litigation notice he sent early in the case.      

The plaintiffs' attorney, Fayetteville solo John Mrosek, said a posttrial challenge to the verdict is likely.  

“My clients are certainly contemplating an appeal or motion for new trial,” said Mrosek. “We moved for a mistrial on Day Three because there were multiple errors of law.”

“Much of our evidence was excluded,” said Mrosek. “Our expert contended that the cause of death was not natural. His testimony was excluded midtrial.”

According to the lawyers, a Carlton Fields summary and court filings, the case began in October 2012 when Robert Coker, 86, was admitted to Kindred Transitional Care and Rehabilitation in Fayetteville after undergoing hip replacement surgery.  

According to plaintiffs' filings, Coker's son told staff his father wore removable dental bridges and that the upper one appeared loose because there were “clicking” sounds when he talked.

The staff noticed Coker was making “gurgling” sounds the day after he was admitted. His son arrived and said Coker—who was then unable to speak—appeared to be in pain and asked that he be transferred to an emergency room, the plaintiff's filings said.

He made his concerns known to the nursing staff and physician Wendy Goza, but she declined to release Coker to the ER until three days later.

The ER staff at Piedmont Fayette Hospital used X-rays to determine that Coker's bridge had lodged in his throat but were unable to remove it because it was attached to his esophageal wall, according to the plaintiffs.

Coker was transported to Piedmont Atlanta, where a tracheal surgeon was able to remove the device.

One month later, Coker went into hospice for terminal Parkinson's disease. He died four months later from aspiration.    

In 2014, Coker's son and daughter, Robert Coker and Sherri Hutson, sued Kindred Healthcare and Goza in Fulton County State Court for multiple counts including simple, gross and medical negligence and wrongful death.

The complaint said that, by allowing Coker to suffer for three days before releasing him, the defendants caused Coker's condition to deteriorate, affected his hip's healing, caused the loss of oxygen to his brain and spurred the aspiration that ultimately killed him.

In addition to the health care center's rejected settlement offer, the plaintiffs submitted a certified offer of judgment in 2016 for $1.25 million.

Alford said his client never offered to settle.

During a six-day trial before Chief Judge Diane Bessen, Alford said the defendants presented a united defense.

Key plaintiffs' witnesses included Queens, New York, geriatrics specialist Perry Starer and DeKalb County Medical Examiner Gerald Gowitt.

Alford said his key expert was family medicine specialist Harry Strothers from Macon, and Kindred's was Johns Island, South Carolina, geriatrician Gregory Compton.

After the trial began, Bessen granted a motion to exclude Gowitt's testimony “regarding the theorized acceleration of the decedent's death and shortening of his life-span by the injury complained of” by the plaintiffs.

The jury took about two-and-a-half hours to rule for both defendants on Jan. 29.

The attorneys did not speak to the jury afterward.

Alford said that, in his view, “Judge Bessen tried a very clean trial. Any chances of success on appeal would be unlikely.”

Mrosek felt otherwise.

“My clients wanted one thing: a fair trial to give justice to a man who laid in a bed for three-and-a-half days with a bridge in his throat,” he said.