More than a decade after state doctors removed the wrong part of a teenager's brain, lawmakers quartered the amount of money originally awarded to the patient's family by a state panel.
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On Wednesday, a legislative subcommittee that approves or rejects rulings from the Arkansas Claims Commission voted to pay the family of Cody Metheny $500,000 instead of the $2 million awarded after the commission found that state physicians concealed that Metheny's surgery was botched.
Before voting, the subcommittee heard dueling motions -- one to support the $2 million award, another to strike it to zero. Lawmakers then agreed on $500,000.
The current fiscal session is drawing to a close. A co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville, said it was likely the money would be added to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' appropriation in the next legislative session.
An attorney for Metheny's family, Phillip Duncan, said he was disappointed by the subcommittee's decision. He said the end result is Metheny's family faces the difficulty of finding a way to pay for Cody's assisted care.
In 2004, Metheny, then 15 and suffering from seizures, was operated on at Arkansas Children's Hospital by surgeon Badih Adada, then the head of the UAMS Pediatric Neurosurgery Unit, which was anchored at Children's Hospital.
What was supposed to be a four-hour procedure lasted eight hours, according to Duncan, after Adada removed portions of the wrong side of the brain, and then completed the surgery on the correct side.
Duncan said his clients weren't told what happened until about 18 months later, when they received an MRI at a different hospital that showed signs of the damage.
In a 2010 trial in Pulaski County Circuit Court, the Methenys won a $20 million judgment against Children's Hospital. The award was later reduced to $11 million. In another lawsuit, the family reached a $1 million settlement with Adada.
The case went before the Claims Commission, a quasi-legal entity created to hear cases against state entities that would be voided in court because of sovereign immunity. The commission ruled that the family should get $2 million because UAMS doctors did not follow their own policies and were negligent in the case. The commission also found that, though the doctors were working at Children's Hospital, UAMS officials were still liable.
State attorneys and Duncan had discussed a $1 million settlement. State attorneys asked that the commission's findings be vacated, to which Duncan objected.
As a part of the $500,000 award approved by lawmakers, the commission's findings must be vacated and the Methenys can no longer litigate the matter.
Sherri Robinson, an attorney for UAMS, told lawmakers that the claims against the state should be dismissed because UAMS and Arkansas Children's Hospital were two different entities and that the UAMS officials involved in the case were not "vicariously liable."
Duncan said the insurance that covers state doctors wouldn't address the "cover-up" they engaged in, but rather, just the surgery itself.
He also said that, though the two hospitals are separate entities, they share staff, facilities, and even advertise being "partners."
Lawmakers were divided Wednesday over what was the real issue as well as the proper path forward.
A co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee's Claims Subcommittee, Rep. John Payton, R-Wilburn, said it was an unfortunate situation but that the Metheny family had already won money in court and that taxpayers shouldn't "be on the hook" for another claim.
Rep. Mary Broadaway, D-Paragould, said the commission's expertise should be given deference. She proposed sustaining that body's $2 million finding.
Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, proposed putting the award at zero.
Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, proposed cutting the award in half after suggesting that a claim like Metheny's should be considered by the commission.
After the meeting, Broadaway said the $500,000 award, proposed with little discussion, was more of the same from the subcommittee.
"There is no method to this madness. I think this committee does not function how it should, in that we should not rubber-stamp what the Claims Commission does but we should give them great deference, otherwise they have no purpose," Broadaway said. "People just pull solutions out of the air."
A Section on 05/05/2016