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Family Gets $11 Million In Medical Malpractice Case Involving Negligence

When a New York mother reported a case of sexual abuse to her doctor, she expected that the doctor would act to help her and her family get to the bottom of the abuse and begin to heal it. However, even after the mother reported that her two little girls, aged 9 and 11 at the time, were being inappropriately touched by their older half brother, the doctor did not act.

This month, a Saranac Lake jury awarded the girls $11 million in damages, confirming that the doctor in question acted negligently. The medical malpractice case gave $6 million to the older girl, now 18, and $5 million to the younger girl, now 16. The girls sustained repeated rapes and abuse from their half-brother over a range of months. Police were finally contacted in 2001, and the half-brother spent almost two years in a juvenile detention facility before being released.

According to evidence given in court, Dr. Patricia Monroe and Adirondack Internal Medicine and Pediatrics was made aware of sexual abuse in the family but did not speak with either girl about the incident or report it to Child Protective Services. Even when the older girl came in for other medical issues, such as a sore throat, the subject of the abuse was not brought up. Monroe and her medical malpractice lawyer are appealing the decision.

"They want to move on," the family's NY medical malpractice lawyer said. "Do they want to be compensated, of course. But they never asked me how much money they're going to get. Money is not a big thing to these kids."

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