City Couple Win Negligence Suit
Case against podiatrist ends in $3.5 million award; settlement reached earlier.
- Publication: The Morning Call
- Date: 2001
A Lehigh County jury recently awarded an Allentown woman and her husband $3.5 million in a lawsuit that claimed medical negligence left the woman with a disabling condition.
Jurors found that a podiatrist was negligent in his care of Joyce E. Bachman but that an orthopedic surgeon was not.
On Aug. 3, the jury decided that Dr. Douglas Tozzoli of Allentown should pay damages of $3 million to Joyce Bachman and $500,000 to her husband, Dale.
The Bachmans probably will not get that amount because they reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement with Tozzoli before the jury started deliberating.
The case proceeded to the jury because the agreement had been made with the other defendant, Dr. Steven J. Lawrence, an orthopedic surgeon who has left the area.
Jurors found no negligence by Lawrence.
The settlement with Tozzoli happened after an unusual occurrence in the trial.
A female juror bent over in her chair and appeared to be having medical trouble. The judge sent the jury box to assist her. Another juror tried to help.
Ambulance personnel took the woman to a local hospital.
Lawyers for the Bachmans and Tozzoli asked for a mistrial. They said they saw two jurors patting Lawrence on the back as jurors walked out of the courtroom.
Allentown lawyer Todd Miller, who represented the Bachmans, and attorneys F.X. Monaghan Jr., Tozzo and John J. Karoly Jr. argued that jurors might be unable to render a fair verdict in the case or to find Lawrence responsible if he had gone through a traumatic event.
The lawyers also contended that jurors might be prejudiced against their clients because of negative allegations that Lawrence provided inadequate care to Joyce Bachman.
Judge Thomas A. Wallitsch denied the requests for a mistrial, and the case proceeded. The settlement with Tozzoli later was reached before the case went to the jury.
Joyce Bachman, 44, came under Tozzoli’s care in 1991 after she stubbed her left big toe when she stepped off a stool at work in the Lehigh County Courthouse. She was treated by Lawrence in 1995.
Lawsuits alleged that failure to diagnose reflex sympathetic dystrophy and improper surgery caused the spread of the disabling condition and left the mother of two grown children unable to walk without crutches and more without a wheelchair or motorized scooter.
Reflex sympathetic dystrophy causes severe pain, swelling and stiffness in ligaments and joints and can result in muscle atrophy and affected limbs.
The Tozzolis filed for bankruptcy, which started in 1995 with the suit against Tozzoli. That suit was consolidated with a later one against Lawrence.
Progress in both suits was delayed in 1998 when PIC Insurance Group Inc. of Montgomery County, Lawrence’s insurance company, became insolvent. Pennsylvania’s general active premium fund — a state pool covering claims involving doctors insured by PIC and another medical malpractice insurance company that collapsed — took over the cases.
“We’re relieved it’s finally over, and we can put it behind us,” Joyce Bachman said Thursday.
Dale Bachman, who is retired from Bethlehem Steel Corp. and has been taking care of his wife, said the money they get will be used to replace their two-story row home with a ranch house, so she won’t have to use the steps.
“It’s always been out there,” he said of the civil case. “It’s a cloud. It’s like a load, something that’s always hanging on your life. There was always some anticipation out there.”
Joyce Bachman has a pain management doctor and takes numerous medications. She said a pump now injects about $750 worth of morphine painkiller to her spine, her husband said.
