Personal Injury

The Birmingham News
March 26, 2002

A Jefferson County jury has awarded $5 million in punitive damages to a Florida woman for the wrongful death of her husband, and against two Birmingham physicians and the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation.

Deborah Holland, of Crestview, Fla., claimed in her 1998 lawsuit that her husband, Robert T. Holland Jr., entered the hospital for a kidney transplant in September 1996. During the operation, a surgeon gave him the antibiotic Chloramphenicol and as a result, the 37-year-old Holland developed a rare bone marrow disorder and died, according to court papers. The plaintiff’s lawyers argued that the drug was used improperly.

Named in the suit were doctors Arnold G. Diethelm and Stephen Zeigler, and the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation, which is the outpatient practice group for all faculty members at the University of Alabama School of Medicine.

During the trial last week, plaintiff lawyers Brent Bradley and John Booth, of Florida, claimed that Zeigler was the attending surgeon who administered the drug according to a protocol developed by Diethelm.

The jury returned a verdict Thursday before Circuit Judge Dan Rogers Jr.

It was unclear whether there will be an appeal. Defense lawyer Robert Williams said the defendants were disappointed in the verdict and will examine the transcript and record to see what decisions need to be made.

This was the second time the case has been tried, according to court records. The case ended in a mistrial last June after a jury was unable to issue an unanimous verdict.

“This has been a long hard battle for them and we hope that they now have some closure,” Booth said of Mrs. Holland and her family.

Chanda Temple