[quote]Jackson couple awarded $600K in case[/quote]
A judge on Tuesday awarded a Jackson woman and her husband $600,435 in a lawsuit arising from an abortion the woman received in 2003.
Hinds County Circuit Judge Bill Gowan awarded the money after issuing a default judgment for Daschica Thomas and her husband, Christopher Thomas, after no one showed for the scheduled Nov. 29 trial of the lawsuit.
The medical malpractice lawsuit was filed in 2005 against Dr. Joseph Booker, the then-Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion clinic, the National Women’s Health Organization of Jackson and others.
The lawsuit alleges that Booker stopped performing the abortion shortly after starting it and said he was unable to finish it. He recommended that Thomas come back so it could be completed by another doctor. “Booker did not recommend antibiotics to her,” according to court papers. Thomas, a diabetic, began cramping and went home, but there “she continued to spot, bleed and she felt dizzy, sick and feverish.”
The abortion led to sepsis poisoning, and Thomas was in a coma for a week and half, according to the lawsuit.
“As default judgment has been entered, all factual allegations must be taken as true and if those facts establish a legal basis for recovery, plaintiff is entitled to recover,” Gowan said. “The court does find the factual allegations establish a medical malpractice action and is therefore inclined to award damages.”
Gowan awarded $500,000 in noneconomic damages to the couple, of which $100,000 goes to the husband; $19,820.83 to Thomas for lost wages and $9,700 to her husband for lost wages; $64,914.60 for Thomas’ medical bills; and $6,000 in punitive damages.
“The court was very methodical in its ruling and very fair,” the couple’s attorney, John Reeves of Jackson, said. “Mrs. Thompson and her husband were terribly wronged, and we now have this judgment that we look forward to collecting.”
Booker, who lives in Madison, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Shannon Brewer, director of All Women’s Healthcare of Jackson, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, has said the default judgment would have no affect on the clinic because it is under new ownership. That is, the National Women’s Health Organization no longer owns the Mississippi clinic.
Booker no longer works at the clinic in Jackson and is seeking his own default judgment against the clinic owner because of a lack of a response to his lawsuit.
In his lawsuit, Booker said he had worked at the clinic from 2002 until he was terminated July 30, 2010, by Dianne Derzis, who took over the Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic in June 2010. He alleges that he was retaliated against for refusing to perform an abortion procedure not approved by the FDA and discriminated against after he was replaced by a white doctor who would use the procedure.
The wrongful termination lawsuit against Jackson Women’s Health Organization Inc. and All Women’s Healthcare of Jackson Inc. was amended in April after it had been filed earlier in Hinds County Circuit Court.
Derzis could not be reached for comment.
Written by The Clarion-Ledger
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