Ken of “Greater Phoenix Attorney at Law Magazine” interviews Phoenix personal injury lawyer Chris Zachar on being selected Solo Practitioner Of The Month, November 2010:
Ken: You have been practicing in this field for how many years??
Chris Zachar: Just short of 18.
Ken: Just short of 18 years. Now I am sure you have helped a lot of people, had a lot of cases. Is there maybe 1 case that stands out in your head that you could talk about that really made a difference in someone’s life ?
Chris Zachar: While you are asking that question as to whether I have made a difference in someone else’s life, I have primarily 2 cases that come to mind. As far as the difference we made there is a case that really comes to mind. We were asked to investigate a medical malpractice case for a young couple approximately 8 years ago. They came to us and she had had a condition which necessitated a surgery. Her physicians which were OB-GYNS, decided that she had a condition which is called Endimetriosis (SP?). Endimetriosis is a condition that is not fully understood in medicine, but it has to do with scar tissue becoming involved with and entangled with the private parts of a woman and very painful. She was having problems with it before and she was having pain again and she consulted with her physicians and they they believed the Endimetriosis was pretty severe and not only was it beginning to affect her, but they believed it might affect her ability to have children.
They believed if they went in and performed a hysterectomy they might really resolve this condition for her. It was really a tough decision for this young couple. She was only 29 years old and he was about the same age and they really wanted to have children and they had known each other in high school and they were working towards that goal. They gave this doctor permission to perform this hysterectomy only if the doctor thought it was completely necessary and following the surgery, The doctor came out and spoke to the husband “it was bad, there was a lot of scar tissue and we thought it was appropriate that she have a hysterectomy.” Unfortunately. for this particular doctor, all tissues that were excised went to pathology and in the pathology report there was no mention of the Endimetriosis.
This woman and her husband had come to us because there were some complications from the original surgery which she wanted us to investigate. In investigating, we actually uncovered the facts which determined that she had a wrongful hysterectomy and and having the wrongful hysterectomy means she completely lost the right to have children naturally. We filed a lawsuit in the caseand we aggressively pursued the litigation.†A good ways into the mediation we were able to get the case settled. I had co-counsel in this case and he literatly was walking out of a meeting and was stopped by someone he knew and asked if he, by chance, knew a young couple that were looking to adopt.
This person knew a woman who was pregnant who going to give up her baby for adoption and she was literally 7 months pregnant and would like to find a nice young couple who she could hand select to adopt the little boy who she was going to have. The light bulb went on, he called me and one thing led to another and literally in the course of about 60 days, we not only had solved this tragic case for this young couple, we had connected them to this woman with this little boy, they hooked up and she had chosen them, she had given birth and they had a beautiful bouncing baby boy it is just a tremendous story. You can’t make up stuff like that.
Ken: That is an amazing story. That kind of makes it all worthwhile sometimes. Other cases are not going to be that dramatic and come to that conclusion and it sure is nice to hear that and know that you made a difference.