Beth Kanik (left) and John Hall of Hall Booth Smith. (Courtesy photos)

A New York jury has found no negligence on the part of a surgeon who was accused of failing to promptly diagnose and treat a woman with a bowel obstruction that ultimately led to the removal of her small intestine and a large portion of her colon.

Hall Booth Smith partner John Hall said the plaintiffs never demanded less than $10 million to settle the case, which ultimately ended in a three-week trial.

He defended the case with partner Beth Kanick, also of the firm's Atlanta office, and Roy Kaufman of New York's Rubin Sheeley.

Hall's client, James Vosswinkel, had reviewed the woman's emergency room colon scan but didn't actually treat the patient, said Hall. Vosswinkel refused to offer anything because he believed he hadn't done any wrong.

“It's an important case because, if you had a surgeon go in to perform exploratory surgery on every patient that comes in complaining of a possible gastric obstruction, they'd never have time to actually do necessary surgeries,” Hall said.

The plaintiffs, patient Helen Medina and her husband, are represented by John Wisell and Nancy McGee of Wisell, McGee & Romano of Kew Gardens, New York.

Wisell said Medina has not decided whether to appeal, “but at this point, it's looking like she's not.”

“The long and short of it is, we tried the case for three weeks, and the jury found that [Vosswinkel] was negligent, but they did not find that his negligence was a substantial factor in my client's injuries,” Wisell said.

According to the Hall and court filings, Medina, now 47, had undergone gastric bypass surgery in 2002. In 2010, she went to the emergency room at Stony Brook University Hospital complaining of abdominal pain.    

The ER physician consulted with Vosswinkel, a surgeon and professor at Stony Brook, and sent him the results of a colon scan, Hall said. It did not reveal an obstruction, but there was a possibility of an intermittent obstruction.

Vosswinkel determined that Medina should be seen by a gastric bypass surgeon.

“My folks told her, 'You don't have an acute surgical abdomen. You can stay overnight, and we'll transport you to a gastric bypass surgeon tomorrow, or you can go home and see a surgeon in the morning,” Hall said. “She chose the latter.”

“There was a dispute about whether she had problems that night,” Hall said. “She testified that she'd been restless and having problems all night and had called an ambulance immediately.”

But the evidence showed Medina had waited and that an ambulance didn't come until 2 p.m.

“There was a real debate about the time she called and when the ambulance came,” he said.

Medina was transported to Peconic Bay Medical Center, where she was determined to have a “dead bowel,” where blood flow to much of her bowel was blocked, killing the tissue.

The Medinas sued several defendants including both hospitals, the ER doctor and the treating surgeon in Suffolk County Supreme Court in 2010.

Vosswinkel was later added as a defendant and accused of being negligent by not performing emergency exploratory surgery when Medina first came to the ER.

The ER physician and surgeon settled their claims confidentially before Hall Booth got involved, Hall said.

There was never any mediation because, “my client very strongly wanted to try the case,” Hall said.

The jury took about an hour and a half to find for the defense on Thursday, Hall said.

He said he thought the jury was impressed by Vosswinkel, who “did a very good job on direct.”