Negligence

The mother of a 22-year-old man who died of an asthma attack at the Howard County Detention Center this summer has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that jail officials did not provide her son with his medication.Jail officials declined to comment on the lawsuit in the death in June of Parrish Michael Spinoso of Ellicott City, but Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker said the jail did nothing wrong."I have every confidence that our people at the detention center did everything correctly," said Ecker, who was notified of the lawsuit yesterday.

A Howard Circuit Court jury has awarded a North Laurel woman nearly $1.3 million in damages in a medical negligence suit, making it the largest civil judgment in the history of the county courts.A jury of six women awarded Candy Zulick and her husband, James Zulick, $1,297,000 in damages against the Columbia Medical Plan and Dr. Jon Minford of Columbia after a six-day trial that ended last week.The Zulicks sued Dr. Minford and the company in May 1992, contending that they failed to treat a blood disorder that damaged Mrs. Zulick's liver to the degree that she may need a transplant.

Jurors cleared a Severna Park physician yesterday of charges of negligence in his handling of a patient who came to him for nose surgery and suffered brain damage.A jury of eight women and four men deliberated five hours yesterday before finding that Dr. Scott E. Burgess, an ear, nose and throat specialist, acted with a reasonable standard of care in surgery performed on Kevin Kennelly four years ago.Mr. Kennelly, a former real estate broker and sales manager for Atlantic Richfield Co.service stations in Annapolis, testified that he has been unable to work since the May 11, 1988, operation at North Arundel Hospital to remove diseased sinus tissue from his nose.

A longtime county pediatrician said he felt like he had "a ton of bricks lifted off his shoulders" last week when a Carroll jury ruled hewas not negligent in his care of a baby boy who died at Carroll County General Hospital.Dr. Karl Green, the first staff pediatrician at the hospital, said he is relieved that the trial is over, though he said it didn't disrupt his medical practice."My patients' parents stood by me," Green said, standing on the steps of the courthouse after the verdict was announced.

A woman who was convicted of manslaughter for leaving her infant son in a hot car, where he died while she was cleaning a town house in Laurel in May 1989, was spared a jail sentence yesterday by a Howard County judge.Donna Marie Mutyambizi, 22, of District Heights in Prince George's County was given a five-year suspended sentence and three years of supervised probation in the death of her son, Jonathan Courtney.Ms. Mutyambizi, who has two other children aged 15 months and 3 months, also was ordered to continue receiving counseling at a health clinic and to bring her children with her on monthly visits to her probation agent so their condition can be monitored.

A 64-year-old Reisterstown man, who shot his hunting companion near Hampstead in December, was placed on probation for 12 months after a trial in Westminster District Court yesterday, a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) spokeswoman said.Raymond Struble of the first block of Shropshire Court was charged with negligent hunting after Michael Lee Sanner, 53, of the first block of Penndragon Court in Reisterstown was shot in the right elbow and flown to a Baltimore trauma center.Mr. Sanner at first told police he was hunting about 8 a.m. Dec. 4 on Wine Road near Hampstead when his rifle accidentally discharged and he was shot.

The jury in the nation's largest asbestos trial found a seventh company negligent and liable yesterday for failing to warn workers about the potential health hazards posed by exposure to asbestos.On Monday, the jury ruled against all six firms named as defendants in the consolidated personal injury case.Yesterday, the jury ruled that Owens-Illinois Inc. was liable in a "cross claim" filed by three of the six defendants. Owens-Illinois had previously made out-of-court settlements with the 8,550 plaintiffs and was not a defendant in the trial.

An attorney says negotiations with St. Joseph Medical Center over patients who received cardiac stents they might not have needed have collapsed and that he plans to file malpractice claims on behalf of 104 clients. The lawyer, Jay D. Miller, has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday. The lawsuits against the hospital and Dr. Mark G. Midei, who ran the cardiac catheterization lab, would be the largest number filed against the Towson hospital since problems with stents first surfaced last year after federal authorities subpoenaed records for an investigation into suspected Medicare fraud.

The article about the judgment in the death of Dondi Johnson Sr. ("$7.4 million judgment in wrongful-death suit," April 8) is very upsetting. We pay taxes so we can have officers to protect and serve, but this is just another case showing how Baltimore City police treat detainees with no respect, like they were animals and not human at all. I feel that officers Nicole Leake, Sendy Ferdinand and Michael Riser should pay the $7.4 million to...