A Mobile County jury has returned a $50,000,000 verdict in favor of the family of Dan Haas, concluding a 13-day wrongful death trial centered on allegations of medical negligence following a cardiac procedure.
The case arose from events in late December 2020, when Haas returned home from a hunting trip experiencing severe pain between his shoulder blades along with shortness of breath. On Christmas Day, he contacted his cardiologist, Dr. John Galla, to report his symptoms. According to trial testimony, Haas was advised to rest and schedule a stress test for the following Monday.
On December 28, Haas visited Cardiology Associates, where testing revealed abnormal cardiac results. Two days later, on December 30, Dr. Galla performed a heart catheterization that showed what plaintiffs argued was a serious and life-threatening blockage.
Despite those findings, Haas was discharged from the hospital the same day. Evidence presented at trial showed he was cleared for an elective eye surgery the following week and instructed to begin blood thinners only after that procedure.
Haas died later that night in his sleep.
Attorneys for the Haas family presented testimony from leading cardiology experts who stated that, based on the condition identified during the catheterization, standard care required hospital admission and immediate treatment with blood thinners. According to that testimony, those measures would have given Haas a greater than 99% chance of survival.
The trial also focused heavily on medical records created at the time of treatment. The defense challenged the accuracy of those records, including entries authored by Dr. Galla, while plaintiffs argued they reflected clear evidence of the care provided and decisions made.
The case was tried by a Cunningham Bounds team that included Skip Finkbohner, Lucy Tufts, Dave Wirtes, and Carmen Chambers, who argued that the failure to admit Haas and initiate treatment fell below the accepted standard of care.
Following the verdict, attorney Lucy Tufts said the decision validated what the Haas family had believed since Haas’s death.
Attorney Skip Finkbohner noted that the case proceeded to trial after efforts to resolve the matter beforehand were unsuccessful.
The verdict marks a significant outcome in a case involving claims of medical malpractice and wrongful death.
Cunningham Bounds, with offices in Mobile, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia, represents plaintiffs in cases involving catastrophic personal injury, medical malpractice, product liability, and complex civil litigation.