OPO Found Negligent, But Liver Transplant Recipient Loses Lawsuit

A jury has found that an organ procurement organization (OPO) was negligent in not adequately warning a transplant center it had used a alternative solution to flush a cadaver liver, but it did not find the negligence responsible for the failure of the subsequent liver transplant.

Jim Smith, who fell into a brief coma after the 1994 transplant failure and lost much of his memory and some use of his arms and legs, lost his lawsuit for millions of dollars against the then OPO, Colorado Organ Recovery.

The jury found the OPO negligent in not warning University Hospital in Omaha that it had used a solution called Eurocollins to flush out the liver instead of the widely used University of Wisconsin solution.

But the jurors felt by a 10-to-2 margin that "there wasn't enough clinical evidence to prove the EC flush was the problem" in the subsequent failure of Smith's liver transplant, according to juror Gene Dragon.

While the use of the Eurocollins solution -- which preserves livers for about half the time of the University of Wisconsin solution -- was noted in documents that accompanied the liver, nobody from the OPO called the attention of Dr. Byers Shaw, the University Hospital transplant surgeon, to the change. Shaw consequently didn't start the transplant until nearly 15 hours had passed.

Smith suffered a coma when the liver failed, and doctors at University Hospital had to use livers from a pig and a cadaver to keep him alive until they could find another human liver suitable for transplant.

Attorneys for Colorado Organ Recovery (which merged with Mile High Transplant Bank in 1997 to become Donor Alliance) argued that no evidence proved that Eurocollins caused the transplant failure.

Defense attorney Bob Bals said he disagreed with the jury finding that the OPO was negligent in not telling the surgeon about the change in solutions, but added: "We're very pleased with the verdict."