$4.5M for Medical Malpractice
New Jersey Law Journal
February 12, 2001

By Charles Toutant

Guida v. Fichman; A Gloucester County jury awarded $4.5 million in damages on Feb. 2 to a Turnersville woman who suffered a parylizing stroke, allegedly due to interaction between two migraine drugs.

But the plaintiff, Delores Guida, 49, will receive an undisclosed sum because attorneys in the case reached a confidential high-low agreement before the jury deliberated.

Guida sued her doctor, Herbert Fichman of Washington Township, in connection with a stroke that left her paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair, according to her attorney, Cherry Hill solo practitioner Gayle Lewis.

Guida's experts, a neurologist and a pharmacologist, alleged at trial that an interaction between two migraine medications Fichman prescribed, Imitrex and Cafergot, caused the stroke. The defense maintained that the drugs did not cause the stroke, says Lewis.

After a 10-day trial before Judge Donal Smith, the jury found Fichman was 68 percent negligent. The award included $100,000 for past medical expenses, $150,000 for lost wages, $445,000 for future lost wages, and $600,000 for pain and suffering.

The physician was represented by Jay Blumberg of Woodbury's Reynolds, Drake & Blumberg, who did not return calls requesting comment.