The doctor looking after Los Angeles Chargers’ Justin Herbert’s fractured rib cartilage is being sued for medical malpractice by a former Chargers player.
NFL quarterback Tyrod Taylor is asking for $5 million after suffering a punctured lung while being treated for a rib injury in 2020. Taylor, who now plays for the New York Giants, is suing the Chargers team doctor David S. Gazzaniga. The Newport Orthopedic Institute, where Gazzaniga works, was originally listed as a defendant but has since been dismissed from the case.
The trial has been postponed until after the football season, but the lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in May 2021 for Taylor’s injury that happened two years ago.
Right before the Chargers’ game against the Kansas City Chiefs on September 20, 2020, Taylor suffered a punctured lung when Gazzaniga tried to give him a pain-killing injection for his fractured ribs. The 33-year-old Taylor says in the lawsuit that he suffered “severe physical pain resulting in hospitalization, physical therapy, emotional distress and other past pain and suffering.”
Taylor’s attorneys also claim that Gazzaniga’s “negligence, carelessness and other tortious, unlawful and wrong acts … caused [Taylor] to lose position as the starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Chargers for the 2020 season,” soon before he was to become a free agent.
Taylor’s complaint says, “As he returned to free agency, he entered as a back-up quarterback as opposed to a starting quarterback. The economic difference between a starting quarterback’s salary and a back-up quarterback salary is at least $5,000,000 and is more than likely much greater. The exact amount of such past and future loss is unknown to [Taylor] at this time, and he will ask leave of this Court for permission to amend this Complaint to set forth the total amount when ascertained.”
Taylor began the 2020 season as the Los Angles Chargers’ starting quarterback but the punctured lung cost him the rest of the year.
His attorneys also accuse Gazzaniga of “medical battery” in the lawsuit, because the quarterback “did not have proper and accurate informed consent prior to the anesthetic injections.”
Gazzaniga has remained on the Chargers’ training staff and hasn’t responded to the lawsuit.
Taylor didn’t play for the remainder of the 2020 season after the rib injury and subsequent punctured lung. After that 2020 season, he joined the Texans on a one-year deal worth up to $12.5 million and began the season as Houston’s starting quarterback. However, he suffered a hamstring injury and missed six games. Taylor returned from injured reserve to start four more games before the Texans turned to rookie Davis Mills as their starting quarterback in early December.
Taylor signed a two-year deal worth up to $17 million, including $8.5 million guaranteed, with the New York Giants in March and was active for the NFL season opener against the Tennessee Titans as the backup to Daniel Jones.
For a free consultation with an experienced medical malpractice attorney in Michigan, contact Buchanan Firm. We can discuss your situation if you believe you’ve been injured as the result of a misdiagnosis, missed diagnosis, or an error in lab results.
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