ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 27, 1997 TAG: 9702270076
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE SECOND ATTORNEY for the woman with breast cancer said this will remind lawyers that they must treat evidence like sacred texts.
Vicki Stathos, who is terminally ill with cancer after a doctor misdiagnosed her mammogram, won't get any compensation from the doctor. But an Alexandria jury has ordered her lawyer to pay her $1 million.
The jury awarded Stathos the money Monday after Benjamin W. Glass III, the attorney representing Stathos in a medical malpractice suit against the doctor, lost the only copy of the mammogram.
Without the X-rays, there could be no case, and the malpractice suit had to be dropped.
``It was a terrible shock. I told my husband, `What do you mean? This is unbelievable,''' said Stathos, 41, of Prince William County. ``You do feel terribly hurt. Like everybody else, I put these professionals on a pedestal.''
Although no one knows for sure, the mammogram probably was thrown out by a cleaning crew after Glass left it too close to an office trash can, according to court testimony.
``This case will be a wake-up call for lawyers who do not consider that when they hold evidence, they are holding sacred affairs in their hands,'' said Bernard DiMuro, who represented Stathos in her suit against Glass.
Even Glass said he was relieved that Stathos was compensated. ``A lot of lawyers have told me, `Whew, this could have happened to any one of us,''' Glass said. ``I'm actually glad Vicki won her case. If anybody deserves to be compensated, she's the one.''
A banker before she became ill, Stathos went to Femme Care, a Fairfax gynecology clinic, in 1992 when she felt firmness in her breasts. She had a mammogram and it was sent to Northern Virginia Breast Imaging Center, where a radiologist declared her healthy.
Sixteen months later, when she saw puckered skin on her breast, Stathos went to new doctors who told her she had cancer. They said the disease had spread to 12 of her lymph nodes and that it was terminal.
Stathos took her case to Glass, who consulted medical experts and in August 1994 sued the clinic, the center and the radiologist.
The suit alleged that the delay in diagnosing the cancer irreparably damaged Stathos' chance of recovery. It sought $1 million, the maximum permitted under Virginia law.
In March 1995, Glass told Stathos that the mammogram records were lost. Glass said in a 1996 deposition that the X-rays disappeared while he was handling other cases.
Glass's malpractice insurance company, the American National Lawyers Insurance Reciprocal, is responsible for paying the judgment against him.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB