County Settles 3 Malpractice Suits

LOS ANGELES â€”  The Board of Supervisors went behind closed doors Tuesday to settle three medical malpractice lawsuits, costing taxpayers more than $2.5 million.

All three cases involve injuries suffered by very young children. County staff had predicted that if the cases went to trial, juries could return verdicts totaling $10 million.

In the most expensive case, medical staff at County-USC Medical Center failed to realize that Leticia Avila, a 32-year-old who was six months pregnant with her first child, required an emergency caesarean section because her fetus was being deprived of oxygen. The child, Daisy Herrera, is paralyzed. The board agreed to pay Avila and her daughter $975,000.

In the second case, supervisors agreed to pay $950,000 to the family of Malik Ramseur, who was 23 months old when he suffered brain damage after medical staff at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center continually tried to extract fluid from his spinal column for a test when his mother took him there with a 104.7-degree fever. According to county documents, Malik stopped breathing during the procedure but staff did not notice until his brain had been deprived of enough oxygen to render him brain-damaged.

In the third case, medical staff at King/Drew delayed performing a caesarean section during the birth of Jazmin Lara, who suffered brain damage from oxygen deprivation. Supervisors agreed to settle that lawsuit for $698,000.

In a separate action, the board amended its lease with the Fairplex Assn. for the fairgrounds in Pomona, which until this year was the home of what was billed as the nation’s biggest gun show. That operation left last month after supervisors banned the sale of firearms on county property. On Tuesday, supervisors agreed to give the Fairplex a $600,000 rental credit for loss of revenue and to require a number of procedural safeguards if gun shows are held there in the future.