GCF’s medical malpractice trial team of David Carter, Dane Ullian, and Jason Odom recently obtained a $4 million jury verdict in Indian River County on behalf of a client, Dwight Irwin, whose wife Delores died after an elective gall bladder removal surgery at Sebastian River Medical Center (SRMC). During the surgery, Dr. Haidi Shalhoub perforated his patient’s bowel and finished the operation without recognizing or repairing the perforation he caused. Delores Irwin returned to SRMC just a few hours later with the signs and symptoms of abdominal infection due to surgical injury, but the surgeon failed to timely recognize and treat her evolving sepsis until it was too late.
Although, SRMC internally concluded that the surgeon had made several critical mistakes, it took the opposite position in litigation forcing GCF to take the case to trial. The jury took less than an hour of deliberating to find the surgeon’s care fell below the required standard of care and to award $4 million dollars to Mr. Irwin for the unnecessary and preventable death of his wife.
Medical Malpractice Trial Team
David Carter has been a partner at Gould Cooksey Fennell since 1996. He founded and chairs the firm’s Personal Injury & Medical Malpractice Group. Mr. Carter is Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by the Florida Bar. He has been included in the Best Lawyers in America rankings since 2012. This publication has twice named him Personal Injury Litigation Plaintiff’s Lawyer of the Year for Central Florida. He is the only Treasure Coast attorney to achieve this distinction.
Dane Ullian is a member of the firm’s litigation team and focuses his practice on jury trials of personal injury, medical malpractice, and wrongful death cases as well as business governance and trust disputes. Mr. Ullian has been named a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2020, 2021, and 2022 and a Best Lawyers Ones to Watch in 2021 and 2022. He graduated ranked number one in his class at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and previously served as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force.
Jason Odom focuses his practice on personal injury and medical negligence, probate and trust litigation. He is a board-certified specialist in Civil Trial by the Florida Bar, has been named a Super Lawyer by Law & Politics Magazine since 2017, and has served on various Florida Supreme Court committees, including the committees on Civil Trial Jury Instructions and Professionalism. Mr. Odom is also an honored former member of our nation’s armed services, serving in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and achieving the rank of sergeant.
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