Rothman sues the lawyers who represented it in a former Eagles captain’s $43.5 million malpractice trial
Rothman alleges in the complaint that it has reached a settlement with Chris Maragos' attorneys, but the defense lawyers the institute hired didn't take steps to enforce it.
A Philadelphia jury hit the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute with a $14 million verdict the morning after the last Eagles Super Bowl appearance for failing to rehab the knee of former special teams captain Chris Maragos.
Two years later, the Eagles are in a Super Bowl rematch, and Rothman is trying to get most of the money it paid the player back — from the law firm that defended the institute in the trial.
The Jefferson Health-affiliated practice filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas against the Plymouth Meeting-based O’Brien & Ryan firm for legal malpractice. It accuses the defense attorneys Rothman hired of failing to enforce an alleged verbal agreement between Rothman’s president and the firm representing Maragos to settle the case for $1 million.
Rothman paid Maragos more than $16 million to satisfy the judgment, it says in the lawsuit. And it ended its decade-long partnership with the Eagles following the verdict, citing the risk of litigation.
» READ MORE: Rothman must pay its share of former Eagles captain Chris Maragos’ $43.5 million verdict, appeals court rules
Maragos was injured in the 2017 regular season ahead of the Eagles’ Super Bowl run. He accused James Bradley, an acclaimed surgeon who is the Pittsburgh Steelers’ team physician, of neglecting to treat his meniscus, a shock absorber inside the knee, when repairing a torn ligament.
In the 2023 trial, Maragos accused Rothman physicians of withholding information about the extent of his injury, and dismissing his complaints about discomfort. Former Eagles players, including Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles, testified on Maragos’ behalf.
A jury returned a $43.5 million verdict. Bradley was found liable for two-thirds of the award, and Rothman for the remaining third. The verdict has since survived appeals, including in the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
Now Rothman says that Bradley was negligent, and that the institute agreed to settle the case after the trial started but before the jury issued its verdict.
“During trial it became obvious that Dr. Bradley had been negligent, that he had caused Mr. Maragos’ injury, that the jury did not like Dr. Bradley, and that as a result the jury was going to award an extraordinary amount of money,” the complaint said. “The case against [Rothman] appeared to be much weaker.”
A few days after the start of the trial, the complaint says, Rothman president Alexander Vaccaro spoke on the phone with James Beasley, of the Beasley Firm, which represented Maragos. Beasley offered to settle the case against Rothman for $1 million if one of the institute’s physicians would testify that Maragos’ meniscus wasn’t repaired in the surgery, and that by the time the physician saw the NFL player months later, it was beyond repair.
Vaccaro agreed to settle the case, the complaint says. An attorney from O’Brien & Ryan was on the call, but allegedly never memorialized the agreement in writing.
O’Brien & Ryan attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.
Later in the trial, attorneys for Rothman discussed with Maragos’ lawyers a settlement agreement that would have guaranteed the player a payout of at least $1 million but no more than $3 million.
Vaccaro instructed the attorneys not to discuss the prospective agreement because the case was already settled, the complaint said.
But Rothman hadn’t settled the case, as no written agreement was drawn by its attorneys and signed by Maragos. And Bradley, who was on the hook for two-thirds of the verdict, or $29 million, reached a $5 million settlement agreement, the complaint said.
Dion Rassias, who represented Maragos, said the Beasley firm denies “everything in that pleading.” John Conti, who represented Bradley, did not respond to a request for comment about the surgeon’s settlement.
The lawsuit asks for at least $13 million in damages, which is the difference between the $16 million that Rothman paid and what it would have paid had it entered the settlement limiting the verdict to $3 million.
The complaint also says that had the O’Brien & Ryan attorneys added the Rothman physicians individually as defendants, an extra $5 million from insurance could have gone toward the verdict.
Rothman declined to comment beyond the complaint.