This afternoon, after three hours of deliberations, the jury returned a unanimous defense verdict in Jensen v. Intermountain Healthcare, dba LDS Hospital. (See my initial and second blog posts.) The jury found that Mr. Jensen (or his agents) had “discovered” his legal injury more than two years before commencing his action.

Here’s Judge Lawrence’s decision on the competing proposed jury instructions and his analysis of the proper legal standard for determining discovery of legal injury. The court decided to use an instruction (see instructions given to the jury) that the injury “may have been caused by the negligence of a medical provider.”

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the briefing by both sides on the standards for “discovery” has been comprehensive. I commend these briefs to anyone encountering medical malpractice statute of limitations issues in the future.

One final note. The injuries to Erik Jensen are severe and life-long. In my opinion, the law on what constitutes “discovery” has been muddled by inconsistent appellate decisions over the past decade. So it’s possible that an appeal will follow, and perhaps we will get more definitive clarification.

Defense counsel:  Brinton Burbidge, Paul Van Komen, and Geoff Gunnerson of Burbidge & White