Jury sides with health care providers in medical malpractice suit

A Jasper County jury has sided with two Springfield physicians and their employers in a medical malpractice lawsuit brought by the widow of a man who died in 2022 from metastatic melanoma in his brain.

Alison Pendergrass, on behalf of her minor child, sued Drs. Iftikhar Ali, his medical practice, Salim Rahman, the Lester E. Cox Medical Center and Springfield Neurological and Spine Institute, alleging that Rahman, a neurosurgeon who performed a spinal fusion in November 2019, failed to submit for biopsy an abnormal skin lesion that he allegedly removed from Bill Enochs’ back during that procedure; and that Ali, his primary care physician, did not detect during regular office visits.

It was only when Enochs saw two other providers nearly two years later that the cancerous growth was detected and removed, the suit alleged, followed by the cancer diagnosis. He died one year later, in October 2022.

Enochs’ lawyers sought more than $4.5 million at trial, but the jury rejected that claim after an eight-day trial that concluded in mid-November 2024.

Debra Gullett-Johnson, who with co-counsel Brian Malkmus represented Rahman, Cox Medical Centers and the neurological institute said that ultimately, “jurors tended to believe that faded ink won out over faded memories.” The defense disputed that the surgeon removed a growth.

“The lack of medical records or photographs proving that (an earlier) skin biopsy did occur was telling, and the conflicting stories by plaintiff and her witnesses were unbelievable,” she surmised.

“If the skin biopsy had occurred, the informed consent, eight or so people in the procedure, and the charted time-out detailed in the medical record would have indicated there had been two procedures, when it was clear there was only one — the lumbar fusion.”

Numerous expert witnesses supported that assessment at trial, she added.

Joplin plaintiff’s attorney Roger Johnson declined comment, other than “congratulating outstanding counsel for the defendants on their stellar work in litigation and in trial.”

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Verdict for defendants

Medical malpractice/wrongful death

Venue: Jasper County Circuit Court

Case Number/Date: 22AO-CC00265/Nov. 15, 2024

Caption: Alison Pendergrass, individually, as next friend of L.P. and as plaintiff ad litem for Billy Enochs v. Ali Internal Medicine Associates, Iftikhar Ali, M.D., Lester E. Cox Medical Centers, Springfield Neurological Institute, and Salim Rahman, M.D.

Plaintiff’s experts: Dr. Len Crammer, Seattle (oncology); Diane Meehan, Staten Island, New York (nursing) Dr. Alan Boyd, Nashville (dermatology), Dr. Richard Wohns, Seattle (neurosurgery); Dr. Earl Stewart Jr., Atlanta (internal medicine)

Defendant’s experts. Dr. Jonathan Citow, Libertyville, Illinois (neurosurgery); Dr. George Murphy, Harvard Medical School (dermatopathology); Dr. John DeSpain, Osage Beach (dermatology) Dr. Daniel Derman, Chicago (internal medicine; Arlene Wright, Fort Myers, Florida (nursing)

Judge: Circuit Judge Gayle Crane

Plaintiff’s attorneys: Roger Johnson (lead) and Anna Pace-Johnson; Johnson, Vorhees & Martucci, Joplin

Defendant’s attorneys: Brian Malkmus (lead) and Debra Gullett-Johnson, Malkmus Law Firm, Springfield (for Rahman, Cox, SNI); Catherine Reade and Randy Cowherd; Cowherd, Reade, Adair & Laney, Springfield (for Ali, Ali’s clinic)