Dordick wins $31.5M med-mal verdict, an Arizona record

A Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona jury awarded a mother and her son $31.5 million over botched labor at a Banner Health facility that left the boy with cerebral palsy, according to her lawyer, Gary A. Dordick of Los Angeles.

“We were so fortunate to represent Greyson Griepentrog. He’s nine years old, and he suffers from cerebral palsy,” Dordick said. “He’s essentially confined to a wheelchair, and still, he’s the happiest young man. Always smiling and laughing. He’s lost the ability to speak, so he talks through an iPad essentially, but he still laughs and smiles.”

David Toone of the Mac Ban Law Offices represented Dr. Laurie P. Erickson. Margeret Dean of Campbell, Yost, Clare & Norell P.C. represented Banner Health. Neither could immediately be reached for comment.

The jury returned its verdict Friday after a four-week trial. The panel concluded that the doctor was 43% responsible and Banner Health was 57% responsible for medical practice claims. Krystle Griepentrog v Banner Health et al., CV2020-052367. (Maricopa Super., filed April 30, 2020)

Dordick was among several California lawyers who established a footprint in Arizona after the state in 2021 allowed non-lawyers to own law firms there. He said his team believes this is the largest medical malpractice and largest injury verdict in Arizona history.

Dordick explained that Greyson’s mother, Krystal, went into labor 100% healthy. That labor lasted 16 hours, during which the doctor over prescribed Pitocin, depriving Greyson of oxygen for an extended period of time. Pitocin is a synthetic version of oxytocin that doctors use to induce labor.

“In short, he was deprived of oxygen and born with brain damage, which leads to cerebral palsy,” Dordick said. “You look at the fetal heart monitoring strips to determine how often the baby was without oxygen and for how long.”

Dordick said that when he asked to see Greyson’s heart monitoring strips, Banner Health said they were lost.

“They mistakenly or inadvertently were lost, and therefore, they claimed we were unable to prove the case,” Dordick said. “The judge in Arizona denied our request for a spoliation of evidence instruction, even though they’re required by law to maintain the medical records. The judge’s analysis was that it appeared from the record that the loss was not intentional and occurred prior to the filing of the lawsuit. So, in his view, we were not entitled to a spoliation of evidence instruction. In hindsight, we are happy he denied our request. It is one less issue on appeal.”