Union General Hospital loses civil trial
Jury awards $47 million to plaintiff

By Shawn Jarrard
Editor

A Union County jury has found Union General Hospital Inc. at fault for medical malpractice and negligent credentialing regarding a civil action brought by a former patient.

As a result of the trial, Union General is on the hook for half of the $47 million in damages awarded by the jury to the plaintiff – that’s $23.5 million – pending an appeals process.

The plaintiff, Anna Giacomi, required a double amputation after suffering a bacterial infection that spread during her stay at Union County Nursing Home and Union General Hospital nearly nine years ago, in December 2015.

Based on a lawsuit originally filed in 2017, the civil trial began last month and was conducted in two phases between July 15 and Aug. 5 at the Union County Courthouse, with Enotah Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge James E. Cornwell presiding.

Jury members handed down their first verdict on July 30, finding that medical malpractice had occurred, and their second verdict pertaining to negligent credentialing on Aug. 5.

As part of the verdict, the jury awarded $47 million in damages to Giacomi, “for past and future pain and suffering,” court records show.

The jury apportioned the damages as follows: 5% to Union General Hospital for the medical malpractice of multiple employees; 45% to Union General for the negligent credentialing of Dr. James Heaton; 45% to Heaton himself; and 5% to Dr. Janaki Narravula, court records show.

Neither Heaton nor Narravula were parties to the case but were found to be “at fault” in the medical malpractice verdict, as state law allows parties to be apportioned part of the fault without having to be actual defendants in a case.

Under the Georgia Apportionment Statute, parties may have responsibility apportioned to them without being defendants so that defendants found liable are only held responsible for the percentage of the harm that each is determined to have caused.

It was unclear at press time if either of the nonparties – Heaton or Narravula – had settled with Giacomi prior to the trial.

Narravula was a hospitalist at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville at the time of Giacomi’s initial injuries in November 2015, when she had to be admitted for wounds sustained in a donkey attack, court records show.

Heaton was director of Union County Nursing Home when Giacomi was transferred there for physical rehabilitation about a week after first being admitted in Gainesville.

Giacomi’s injuries resulted in a flesh-eating bacteria infection that worsened during her weeklong stay in Union County, which included being transferred to Union General Hospital after several days in the Nursing Home.

Because Union General “did not call a surgeon to evaluate and treat the infection,” the progressing infection ultimately necessitated amputations of her left arm and leg after she was transported back to Northeast Georgia Medical in December 2015, per court documents.

Represented in the medical malpractice verdict, multiple alleged delays in proper medical evaluation and care by staff at both the Nursing Home and Union General caused Giacomi’s infection to reach a “point of no return,” amounting to negligence that led to her amputations.

Pertaining to Heaton, Giacomi’s lawsuit said that, as Nursing Home medical director and her assigned physician during her time in Union County, he failed to evaluate her condition in a timely fashion, resulting in delayed infection intervention.

In an unrelated case, Heaton and then-Union General CEO Mike Gowder were arrested in February 2016, just two months after Giacomi’s stay at the local nursing home and hospital, and the two men were later tried and found guilty of federal prescription drug crimes.

Giacomi argued that the hospital “at the very least had a reasonable suspicion” that Heaton was the subject of an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration when she was being treated and was therefore negligent in keeping him on as a credentialed physician.

And the jury agreed, finding in favor of Giacomi’s separate negligent credentialing claim based on a “preponderance of the evidence” presented by her legal team at trial.

Former defendants Dr. Kathryn Blocker, The Southland Medical Group, LLC and Blocker Healthcare, LLC; and Dr. Jeffrey McIntire and Gainesville Imaging Associates, P.C. were successfully dismissed from the case, leaving Union General Hospital Inc. as the sole defendant.

In the leadup to and during the trial, Union General maintained that it had not committed medical malpractice nor negligent credentialing, and CEO Kevin Bierschenk said last week he could not comment on the outcome because “the legal proceedings are still ongoing.”

“We’re going back to doing our job and providing good quality care in our community, like we have been,” Bierschenk said. “We’re here to focus on our patient care and our quality outcomes.”

The hospital will have a set period in the coming days to appeal the verdicts.