Jan. 2 -- The state has paid $700,000 to parents who said their daughter suffered "substantial permanent injury" to her right leg after doctors at University of New Mexico Hospital placed a cast incorrectly.
While the award fell short of the state's current multimillion dollar cap on hospital medical malpractice awards, the total cost to taxpayers is more than $900,000 because the state spent nearly $203,000 litigating the case, according to the New Mexico General Services Department.
New Mexico in 2021 overhauled its medical malpractice law, raising the cap for hospitals to $4 million in 2022 with increases each year until it reaches $6 million in 2026, The New Mexican has reported. When the lawsuit was filed in 2020, the cap was $750,000.
The girl was initially treated at Holy Cross Medical Center in Taos after she dislocated her right hip and fractured her tibia during a skiing accident Feb. 25, 2018, in Red River. The girl, who was learning how to ski, was 7.
In Taos, physicians performed a procedure to set the girl's hip and broken tibia without cutting the skin open -- a procedure callled a "closed reduction." The girl was then transported to UNM Hospital, a public teaching hospital in Albuquerque, to be evaluated for a head injury.
Doctors there also recast her leg.
"Quite frankly, this girl would have been fine if UNMH would have left her leg alone after Holy Cross worked on her," said Chris Hoffman, an attorney representing the girl's parents.
Hoffman said an orthopedic surgeon assisted by an orthopedic surgical resident "ended up trying to redo a cast that a highly qualified orthopedic surgeon who works for the U.S. Ski Team had applied" at Holy Cross Medical Center.
"To this day, I do not understand why they decided they needed to reset her leg," he said. "When they put this cast on her, they put it on incorrectly, and it caused a tremendous amount of pressure on her ankle and her calf and ended up causing tissues in her ankle and calf to die, and she ultimately had to have multiple surgeries to correct that."
UNM is closed for winter break, and a hospital spokesperson was unable to comment on the settlement.
A medical malpractice complaint filed in the 2nd Judicial District Court in February 2020 on behalf of the girl's parents, Eric and Valerie Grant, named several physicians and nurses at UNM Hospital as defendants.
"Each of the defendants named in this complaint were part of the medical team providing treatment and care for [the girl] over the 29-hour period following placement of the cast," the lawsuit states.
"Based on the records, and upon information and belief, none of the defendants met their respective duties as treating doctors, physician assistants, and nurses to take the actions required of them to hasten removal of the cast in a timely fashion," it states.
At the time of the accident, the family lived in Lubbock, Texas, and were on vacation. They have since moved to New Mexico, Hoffman said.
The injury has been life-changing for the girl, who has an "altered gait," he said.
"She has one leg and foot that is significantly smaller than the other because it has not grown properly due to all the damage that was done," he said. "She has severe scarring on her lower leg, and she will always have problems with this leg for the rest of her life."
The girl feels pain if she tries to walk for long distances and may face more surgeries, he said.
Asked whether she can run or play sports, Hoffman said the girl's physical abilities are now limited.
"To this little girl's credit, she keeps trying, and she's always kept trying, but the sad fact is that she sits at the end of the bench on a basketball team and doesn't get to play," he said. "Most likely, she'll reach a point where she just doesn't get to be on the team. They've tried to accommodate her as best they can to this point, but the truth of the matter is her athletic future is very dim."
Hoffman said the case shows "exactly why" medical malpractice caps in New Mexico need to be "substantially raised, if not eliminated altogether."
The state raised caps substantially in 2021, then tweaked that legislation last year to exclude small, private clinics from the maximum cap to be paid by hospitals.
"You cannot arbitrarily determine what some of these damages are," Hoffman said. "They need to be evaluated on an individualized basis. They need to full and fairly compensate -- not give a windfall -- but fully and fairly compensate. And you cannot tell me that $700,000, and she doesn't get that much, I might add, after everything's paid for, but you cannot tell me that $700,000 is even remotely close to fairly compensating a little girl for severe injury to her leg. It's just wrong."
Hoffman contends damage caps "give defendants total predictability" and tend to lead to drawn-out, costly litigation because they know the financial risk."
"This little girl ... has a lifetime of pain, impairment and disfigurement to deal with," he said. "The compensation she's going to receive doesn't even come close to what she deserves, all because the state has attached an arbitrary number to cap how much it owes to its citizens when its institutions and employees don't follow basic patient safety rules."
Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.