Joe B. Swart (Partner-New York, NY) successfully defended an attending physician in a Brooklyn nursing and rehabilitation facility who treated the plaintiff’s 78-year-old decedent, who was admitted with a diagnosis of cancer in preparation for two rounds of adjunct chemotherapy. Our client was not present when the lab result showing a highly elevated WBC count was received via facsimile on a Friday evening and he could not be immediately contacted. There was no evidence in the chart reflecting that anyone at the facility reviewed or acted on the lab result until our client returned on Sunday morning, at which time he called an ambulance to transfer the decedent to the hospital, but she coded before arrival. Our client performed CPR, but the decedent expired. At trial, Joe showed that there was a system in place for treatment of patients when the attending physician was away. This included “boots on the ground” coverage by a Nurse Practitioner present at the facility over the weekend, and a “coverage system” whereby a doctor was on-call to the facility 24/7. Unfortunately, these resources failed to back up our client. In his summation, plaintiff’s counsel asked the jury for $900,000 in total damages. After deliberating for just over one hour, the jury returned the verdict, finding “no” to all departure questions.