Brenda Ross

Ross v. Teplick, medical malpractice
Brenda Ross sought out lasik surgery so she wouldn't have to wear contacts any more. She enjoyed swimming and water sports with her family. Without contact lenses in her eyes, she felt she could be more physically active with her family and enjoy life more.Unfortunately, Ross's surgery went tragically wrong. A medical device was not properly assembled and it cut deeply into her eye. She suffered permanent damage and distortion of vision. To make matters worse, she learned that she never was a good candidate for surgery in the first place and her physician failed to tell her.

Following her surgery, she began to look for a lawyer to hold her doctor accountable. She and her husband settled on Lawrence Baron and Greg Zeuthen because of the compassion they demonstrated for her situation. Ross was also impressed that Baron had gone to the legislature to change a law so Anne Kirkwood could have her case move forward. "That told me a lot," said Ross. "That showed me Larry was the kind of attorney who would do everything possible for a client."

From the start, she knew she had chosen correctly. "Larry and Greg never left me out of the loop. I was in communication with them just about every day. They answered every one of my emails. The way they treated me throughout the process was awesome." Her case settled out of court in April 2002 in a confidential agreement. Her bond with her attorneys, though, has not lessened. "I feel that I made two new friends for life. We still communicate with Larry and Greg by email and phone on a semi-regular basis. I think the world of them."

Ross is a home school teacher to her four children, ages 2 to 14. Her impaired eyesight makes teaching her children extremely difficult but she finds a way to cope each day. Her oldest daughter recently enrolled in college level courses.

Aside from her family, Ross is extremely involved in support efforts for victims of lasik and laser eye surgery. She started a group for Oregon and Washington called simply, "Refractive Surgery Complications Support Group." She also participates regularly in a national web site for former lasik patients, "surgicaleyes.org." When she comes across someone who needs legal help, she never hesitates to refer them to Larry Baron and Greg Zeuthen.

Leo Morin

Morin v. Weston, medical malpractice
Leo Morin, of Veneta, Oregon, wanted lighter glasses — glasses that weighed less. His prescription made his lenses big and heavy. Because he worked as an industrial electrician, his eye glasses doubled as safety glasses. They had to be actually made out of glass and not a lighter plastic material.

Lasik surgery seemed to be the answer. He had surgery on both eyes on June 15, 2000. In the days following surgery, he began to realize something wasn't right. His left eye, in particular, was worse. At eye exams, when he was asked to look at the eye chart on the wall, he couldn't make out any letters, even the big "E" at the top.

He learned he had not been a good candidate for lasik surgery. The combination of his pupil size and the refraction of his eye meant he would have problems. He also learned that the doctors literally plugged the wrong refraction into the computer.

"The idea of suing someone was foreign to me," Morin says. "I don't think of myself as a confrontational type person." Yet, as he considered his situation and conversed more with other victims or lasik surgery, legal action became a real option. He made contact with Lawrence Baron and Greg Zeuthen."Larry and Greg reminded me of Gary Cooper in High Noon," recalls Morin. "Larry was so intense. And he knew the language... you could tell he knew a lot about lasik surgery. I thought, 'These are the guys.'"

The case went before a Lane County Circuit Court jury in Eugene on April 9, 2002. On April 11, the jury came back with a verdict against the doctor and awarded Morin $420,000 in damages."He didn't eat the day before the trial," Morin says of Baron's intensity. "He went after my case with all his heart and all his soul. We have a saying at work, 'when you're up to your a__ in alligators.' Well, when you're up to your a__, Larry is a guy you want by your side. I was thankful to have him as my attorney."

Morin still struggles with his eyesight. He suffers from "dry eyes." The dry eyes make his eyes feel like he's in a hot, dusty, desert wind. He relies mostly on his right eye for vision as his left eye produces what he describes as "a dozen double images." In artificial light, Morin says he sees about 40 percent of what he could see prior to his surgery.

Dilio v. Jang; medical malpractice
Lori Dilio was attracted to lasik surgery because it presented an opportunity to get rid of her glasses. She enjoyed physical activities — skiing and swimming — where glasses were an inconvenience. Advertising by a Canadian lasik clinic convinced her the surgery would be a positive move. She went to a clinic near her Bellevue, Washington, home for her pre-surgery exam. Doctors there declared her an excellent candidate.

Dilio traveled to Surrey, British Columbia, for her operation and surgery was performed on February 11, 2000. She immediately realized she had decreased vision and could not focus her eyes. "I couldn't really see," she says. "I had double vision. I saw halos and starbursts around light. And everything was dimmer. It was blurry."

Fearing for her future, Dilio sought legal counsel. "I didn't want to look back someday and think there was something else I could have done," she says. "I wanted to hold the doctors accountable. I wanted to say to the doctors, 'This is what you've done to me. This is what your lousy follow-up has come to.'"

Dilio hired Baron and Greg Zeuthen. "They were tenacious," Dilio says of her attorneys. "They were unstoppable in their research — they wanted to learn everything about my situation, about my condition. There was no stone left unturned. Every idea was pursued. They looked everywhere for answers."

The evidence gathered by Baron demonstrated clearly the mistakes made by Dilio's doctors. There were many: mismeasured pupils, a decentered flap, decentered ablations and a failure to remove straie (or wrinkles).The trial began in November 2002 at the Justice Center in Kent, Washington. Arguments had proceeded for two weeks and Baron had nearly completed his presentation of the Dilio case when the case settled.Dilio left the courtroom with a lasting appreciation for the work put in by her attorneys, "My husband and I were both impressed with the time Larry and Greg invested in our case. They work hard for every penny they make."

Reaching a settlement gave Dilio the closure she needed to move on with her life. Prior to the operation, she successfully operated a small wedding cake business out of her home. Today, she and her husband Michael operate real estate appraisal business from their home. She also home schools her three children.

Ali Warsome fled his native country of Somalia for a better life in the US. Unfortunately, his life changed dramatically for the worse as the result of a car accident on April 28, 2002.

On that day, Warsome was riding in a 1994 Nissan Altima and traveling from his home in Falls Church VA to Washington DC. He was headed to the bus station to visit his daughter in Minnesota. The driver, one of his sons, was attempting a sudden lane change when the car struck a traffic barrier. It wasn't much of a crash — the Altima didn't even need a tow, it was still drivable. However, the impact caused the passenger side air bag to inflate. The air bag struck Warsome's face with such force that his left eye had to be removed. Surgeons were unable to restore the vision in his right eye because – according to his medical records – "the retina was completely shredded." Ali Warsome lost his eyesight because of the impact of the air bag."

I cannot see the sky anymore," the 74-year-old immigrant told a reporter. "I cannot cook, I cannot walk, I cannot help my grandchildren.... I don't know what to do."Warsome's Washington DC attorney, John F. Kennedy, brought Larry Baron in as co-counsel because of Baron's experience prosecuting the Altima air bag cases. Baron and Kennedy documented the defective operation of the airbag. They noted how at least 40 other individuals — riding as passengers in Altimas — had been blinded or otherwise suffered damage to their eyes as a result of the force with which the air bag strikes a passenger's face. Eventually Nissan agreed to an undisclosed settlement with Warsome.

Warsome supported the April 2003 recall of the airbags in the 1994 and 1995 Nissan Altimas. He was featured in a Los Angeles Times newspaper article documenting the product defect just months prior to the recall. This was one of many pressure points applied to Nissan that eventually led to the car company’s decision to replace the air bags.