Michael Grady (Partner-White Plains, NY) and Siobhainin Funchion (Of Counsel-White Plains, NY) obtained a unanimous defense verdict for their client hospital in a two-and-a-half week trial in the Supreme Court of Putnam County. The case involved the death a 55-year-old male leaving behind a widow and four children following  cardiac arrest two days after an emergency room presentation for radiating left shoulder pain. The plaintiff alleged the defendants failed to properly rule out a cardiac cause for the presenting pain with a medical history of hypertension, coronary artery disease, and hyperlipidemia and family history significant for heart attacks. At trial, Mike and Siobhan argued that the emergency room presentation was consistent with a chronic orthopedic etiology that did not warrant cardiac workup, and that postmortem pathology was consistent with a sudden acute cardiac event rather than chronic underlying cardiac condition. On physical exam, the decedent’s shoulder pain was reproduceable with movement and he responded to treatment with an anti-inflammatory and pain medication injection. The defendants’ experts opined that cardiac pain is not reproducible in nature nor would it respond to an anti-inflammatory or pain medication to completely resolve, and our experts further explained that cardiac left extremity pain typically presents with chest pain radiating to the left arm, rather than shoulder pain radiating to the elbow/hand. The trial involved 11 witnesses including 5 experts in the fields of cardiology, pathology, and emergency medicine. The plaintiff’s attorney asked the jury for $23 million in this overly contentious trial. The jury found unanimously for our client in two hours.