Florida Jury Awards $70.8M in Stroke Malpractice Case

Chiaka Stewart’s medical malpractice case arising from care at a Tampa General Hospital-affiliated freestanding emergency room in Brandon, Florida, culminated in a $70.8 million jury verdict after a two-week civil trial. The dispute centers on whether clinicians appropriately evaluated her symptoms in July 2021 before discharging her, and whether earlier intervention could have prevented or reduced the severity of a stroke she suffered two days later.

Post-verdict proceedings have focused on the interaction between Medicaid status and Florida’s statutory limitations on noneconomic damages, raising questions about how damages should be calculated when a plaintiff is a Medicaid patient but a court determines the cap does not apply. Following post-trial motions, the court reduced the jury’s total damages award by roughly $30 million, primarily through a reduction in noneconomic damages.

Discharge, Stroke, and Core Negligence Claims

According to case allegations, Stewart presented to a Tampa General freestanding emergency room in Brandon in July 2021 and was sent home rather than being admitted, transferred, or escalated for further neurologic evaluation. Two days later, she suffered a stroke, and the case contended that the intervening window represented a missed opportunity to diagnose and treat a developing cerebrovascular event, a dynamic often analyzed in stroke-related malpractice litigation. The trial record resulted in findings consistent with negligence claims that the standard of care required different clinical decision-making, including assessment, monitoring, and referral or imaging pathways typically used to rule out stroke or transient ischemic attack in an emergency setting.

The damages awarded reflect a jury’s conclusion that the alleged departures from accepted practice caused substantial and lasting harm. While specific allocations were not provided here, verdicts of this magnitude in stroke-related malpractice matters commonly reflect a combination of economic damages, such as future medical care and life-care needs, and noneconomic damages tied to functional loss and diminished quality of life. The case also highlights the higher litigation exposure that can attach to emergency medicine decisions when clinical documentation, risk stratification, and discharge instructions are later scrutinized against the outcome and the timeline to definitive treatment, including the use (or non-use) of clinical decision rules in emergency medicine.

The Jury Award and Allocation to the Nursing Agency

After a two-week civil trial, the jury awarded Stewart $70.8 million in total damages. A notable component of the outcome was that the nursing staffing agency affiliated with Tampa General assumed liability for the verdict under its contractual arrangement, making it responsible for paying the damages in connection with negligence alleged toward a Medicaid patient. The identification of the nursing agency as a significant payor underscores how liability can extend beyond a hospital entity to contractors and staffing-related organizations when their personnel participate in patient care decisions, triage, or clinical assessments central to discharge and follow-up planning.

This allocation also reflects the fact that malpractice cases frequently test the boundaries of agency, control, and the division of responsibility among facilities, staffing firms, and individual clinicians. Even when the alleged negligence occurs within a hospital-branded setting, contractual relationships can affect how fault and damages are distributed. The verdict’s size and the agency’s share further suggest that jurors credited evidence linking specific clinical actions or omissions to the adverse neurologic event and its consequences, rather than attributing the outcome to unavoidable progression or unrelated risk factors.

Medicaid Damage Caps and the Court’s Ruling on Applicability

Post-trial, the most consequential issue has been whether Stewart’s Medicaid status triggers a Florida law limiting noneconomic “pain and suffering” damages for Medicaid patients to $300,000. The case presentation indicated that, absent further relief, Stewart could lose approximately $51 million of the $70.8 million award if the cap were applied. That potential reduction illustrates how noneconomic damage limitations can substantially reshape verdict value, particularly in catastrophic injury cases where lifetime disability is central to the harm and where economic damages may not capture the full measure of impact, consistent with broader trends discussed in medical malpractice damages caps across states.

In this matter, the judge ruled that the malpractice cap should not apply, preserving the verdict against the statutory limitation described. The ruling places emphasis on threshold questions that often govern cap litigation: whether the statutory prerequisites are satisfied, whether the claim fits within the statute’s scope, and whether constitutional or interpretive issues prevent application in the specific procedural posture. Although additional proceedings or appellate review may follow in cases involving significant statutory questions, the ruling signals that, at least at the trial-court level, plaintiffs may be able to defend large verdicts from cap-based reductions when the court finds the limitation inapplicable on the facts or under governing law.

Case Details

Case Name: Chiaka Stewart vs. Tampa General Hospital, Inphynet Contracting Services, LLC, and Heather Anderson, APRN

Court Name: Circuit Court of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Hillsborough County, Florida

Case Number: Case No. 22-CA-004625

Plaintiff Attorney(s): Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, P.A.