South Florida jury awards $20 million in damages after man's medical malpractice death
WEST PALM BEACH — Two years after administering the powerful painkiller that killed his patient, Dr. Joshua Glauser said he'd do it again.
Jurors took a dim view of the doctor's lengthy and unapologetic testimony. They deliberated for four hours last week before finding Glauser responsible for the death of 53-year-old Josh Hamby, an investment manager who fatally overdosed at the Boca Raton Regional Hospital in 2020 while undergoing treatment for pancreatitis.
Jurors awarded Hamby's widow and young son $20 million in damages for the accidental death. The family has begun to share its story in hopes of preventing others like it.
"Pancreatitis is so common, so many people have it. It's a very treatable condition," said Hamby's wife, Marzena. "To have someone die because of opioids and not being monitored — it's just mind-blowing."
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Hamby arrived at the hospital complaining of severe pain on May 27, 2020, and was diagnosed with inflammation of the pancreas. According to the attorneys who represented Hamby's estate, Glauser ordered increasing doses of Dilaudid — an opioid seven times more powerful than morphine — to help manage his pain.
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Unbeknownst to Glauser, Hamby had a history of obstructive sleep apnea. The condition causes the muscles in the throat and palate to close, stopping the flow of air and putting those who suffer from it at greater risk of complications when taking an opioid, which alone can act as a respiratory depressor.
"It's incumbent upon any physician, if they're going to give a medication — a really powerful narcotic like Dilaudid — to ask the patient specifically if they have any form of sleep apnea," said Daniel Harwin, one of three attorneys representing Hamby's estate. "That was not done here."
Glauser didn't ask Hamby if he suffered from sleep apnea before prescribing and increasing the doses of Dilaudid, nor did he monitor Hamby's vital signs on a telemetry monitor or a pulse oximeter. Experts who testified at his medical malpractice trial told jurors that this was below standard care.
Hamby continued to receive the drug throughout the night and next morning. At 2:26 p.m. on May 28, 2020, a physician found him unresponsive in his hospital bed, his heart no longer beating.
The call to Marzena Hamby came two hours later as she drove their 7-year-old son to a tennis court. Something was wrong, a voice on the other line told her. She needed to come to the hospital immediately.
She did. The hospital staff, who kept her from following her husband inside the day before because of COVID-19 protocols, ushered her quickly to the neurology ward. There, a team of people fretted over her husband.
"I stood there, frozen," Marzena Hamby said. "It's the worst feeling you can have: your husband on the bed in front of you, unconscious, hooked up to a ventilator and a bunch of other equipment."
Unhearing, unseeing, unmoving — so unlike the man she'd spoken to on the phone hours earlier.
Physicians resuscitated Hamby, but the brain damage he already sustained was irreversible. He remained in a coma in the intensive-care unit for more than a week before his family removed him from life support. He died on June 4, 2020.
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Glauser's attorneys denied that the doctor was negligent. They described a hospital staff overwhelmed in the early stages of COVID-19 to explain his lack of continuous monitoring. Hamby's attorneys embraced the picture they painted and used to their advantage, suggesting that an overworked staff was even more reason for Glauser to hook Hamby up to a telemetry monitor or a pulse oximeter.
"Machines don't get overstressed. They don't react differently because of a pandemic," Harwin said this week. "We took what they thought was probably one of their stronger arguments and countered it with what became one of our stronger arguments."
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A standard-of-care expert who testified in support of Glauser also conceded during cross-examination that Hamby's treatment was below the norm. Glauser made no such concessions, telling jurors instead that he provided the type of care for Hamby that he would want someone to provide for him.
Marzena Hamby said she would have stood and screamed had she not been warned by her attorneys not to do anything of the sort. She stared at the corner of a table instead, unable to look at the doctor.
She isn't the first person to sue Glauser. A woman accused the doctor in 2021 of failing to recognize her infection and "rapid deterioration," leaving her with permanent and persistent injury. According to Florida Department of Health, Glauser and a handful of other doctors settled her lawsuit in Broward County for $250,000 this year.
Glauser has been a licensed osteopathic physician since 2009, according to the Florida Department of Health records. Palm Beach Post archives indicate that he was appointed to the Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s medical staff in 2012. His medical license remains active.
Attorneys Michael Burt and Edward Dulatt, who represented the doctor in the Broward County and Palm Beach County lawsuits, did not return requests for comment.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Family of man who overdosed awarded $20 million in medical malpractice suit
