November 01, 2002
Ex-Flyer Awarded $1.37 Million In
Ex-Flyer Awarded $1.37 Million In Injury Suit: One of my proudest moments in my adult ice hockey career occurred in my second season back on the ice. After injuring my knee during a late night game, I had to limp my way across Washington, D.C. to get an X-Ray.
Luckily for me, the X-Rays came up negative, but with my doctor warning me to stay off the ice for a few days at least.
But that course wasn't for me. Even though I couldn't walk up or down steps without wincing in pain, I wasn't going to let that stop me from playing that night. So, armed with a brand new neoprene brace from CVS and plenty of hockey tape, I bandaged myself up as best I could and hit the ice.
No, it wasn't like Mario Lemieux getting clocked in the lip with a puck and coming back after 25 stitches, but it was my little nod to the tradition of playing as long as you could drag yourself onto the ice.
But in the NHL, that time might be coming to an end:
After one day of deliberations, the six-woman, three-man jury awarded former Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Dave Babych $1.02 million in lost earnings and $350,000 for pain and suffering.
Babych was relieved by the decision and hoped it would help others.
"I felt it was the right thing to do. I certainly don't want it to happen to anyone else. I couldn't prove permanent disability, but my foot is not right. And I don't want anyone to have to go through that," he said.
"Injuries happen in hockey and we have doctors looking after us for that. You have to trust them with their decisions. But those decisions have to be made for you, the patient, not for anyone else," Babych said.
Babych, 41, was a veteran defenseman who broke a bone in his left foot April 8, 1998, when he was hit by a slap shot.
Babych told his Philadelphia Flyers coach he was too hurt to play in a playoff series against the Buffalo Sabres two weeks later, but said he was pressured to do so and got injections to numb the pain so he could.
Babych played the series and another season with the Flyers before his 18-year career ended.
But he said the treatment of his foot slowed him down and prematurely ended his career. He sued Comcast-Spectactor -- the owner of the Flyers -- and former team physician Dr. Arthur Bartolozzi for $2.3 million, plus pain and suffering damages.
Initially diagnosed as a bone bruise and later as a fracture, the foot was swollen and painful and needed ice to reduce the swelling enough to get it into his skate, he testified.
When he told then-coach Roger Neilson he couldn't play, Neilson told him he had to, Babych testified in the trial.
"I told him I can't go, and didn't want to hurt the team or hurt myself," Babych said. "He says, `Well, you have to go. We'll take that chance, even if we have to play with five defensemen.'"
The jury found that Bartolozzi deviated from accepted standards in treating the injury, but cleared him of fraud.
Comcast-Spectator, the company that owns the Flyers, had its portion of the case thrown out after the judge ruled that the company couldn't have known or ordered the doctor what to do in this case. But don't doubt for a second that this ruling won't change the way NHL docs do business.
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11:35 AM