Judge awards $5 million to NH woman in medical malpractice case
May 11—CONCORD — A federal judge has awarded $5 million to a New Hampshire woman who suffered years of pain and scarring after a botched surgery at an Army hospital to repair an injury she received in childbirth.
Kasey Woodman, 34, had to endure seven repair surgeries, plastic surgery and at one point a highly invasive ileostomy, all what U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty attributed to a botched 2015 surgery at Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington state.
Woodman and her ex-husband, Mark Foley, who live in New Hampshire, filed suit in federal court here. They sought a $9 million judgment.
A five-day video bench trial took place in November 2021 at U.S. District Court in Concord. It focused on one of the complications that can occur in childbirth, a tearing of the vaginal membrane. If it does not heal properly, it can lead to a complication known as a fistula, which requires surgical repair.
"The failure to perform the primary rectovaginal fistula repair to the standard of care is the legal cause of Woodman's injuries," McCafferty wrote in a 71-page order rendering her verdict. "There are no policy reasons, issues of logic, common sense, justice, policy or precedent indicated that liability should not attach to this case."
McCafferty faulted two physicians who initially operated on Woodman — gynecologist-oncologist Dr. Jan Sunde and OB-GYN Dr. Shannon Renfrow — for operating too quickly on Woodman. Had they delayed, her tissue could have been strong enough to handle the repair, the judge said.
Also, standards call for suturing four layers of tissue to repair the fistula damage. The surgeons sutured only two.
A telephone message left with the public affairs office at Madigan was not returned.
In a statement, the U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire, Jane Young, said: "We are reviewing the decision and will be assessing our next steps in this matter."
The civil law bureau in the office defended the U.S. government in the case.
The $5 million represented pain and suffering that Woodman experienced from the time of the failed primary fistula repair in March 2015 to the successful repair, which was more than three years later.
McCafferty wrote that Woodman suffered pain, depression and mental anguish and was left with scarring.
"Woodman's ability to enjoy normal life was substantially diminished," McCafferty wrote.
Meanwhile, the couple could not socialize, enjoy the outdoors or travel. Their marriage eventually disintegrated.
The judge awarded Foley $150,000 for loss of consortium; he had sought $1.1 million. McCafferty also limited the lawyer fees to 25% of the judgment.
Foley is the brother of international journalist James Foley of Rochester who was slain in August 2014, when Woodman and Mark Foley were expecting their first child. They named him James, after Foley's brother. Mark Foley was in the Army at the time and stationed in Washington.
