Jury awards former Eagles captain Chris Maragos $43.5 Million
A doctor's plan to rehab Chris Maragos's surgically-repaired knee brought an abrupt end to an All-Pro career
A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury today [Monday, Feb. 13] awarded former Eagles captain Chris Maragos $43.5 million.
The former special teams ace cried after the verdict was announced. In court, Maragos had sued Dr. James P. Bradley, the longtime team orthopedic surgeon for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Rothman Institute of Philadelphia for medical malpractice.
In the lawsuit, Maragos’s lawyer charged that Bradley and the team at Rothman had botched surgery on his knee, as well as his rehab. The jury found that Dr. Bradley was responsible for 67% responsible for the negligence that resulted in Maragos having to reluctantly retire in 2019 from the NFL; Rothman, the jury found, was 33% responsible.
Maragos’s stunning victory came a day after his former team lost the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs. Dion Rassias, the lawyer who represented Maragos, wore a green tie every day to court and was hoping the jury was packed with Eagles fans.
The defense lawyers for Dr. Bradley and the Rothman Institute were the victims of incredibly bad timing as the malpractice case, which took two weeks to try, went to court while the Eagles were on a run, winning the NFC championship over the San Francisco 49ers on their way to the Super Bowl.
A trio of former Eagles stars showed up in court to testify on behalf of Maragos, led by former Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles. It was a sad sight to see Maragos hobble down the hallway trying to keep up with his former teammate.
The witnesses who defended Dr. Bradley’s treatment of Foles included three team doctors for the Los Angeles Rams, Houston Texans, and Dallas Cowboys.
Because Maragos couldn’t continue his NFL career, Rassias told the jury in his closing argument on Friday, he was facing economic losses of at least $8.7 million.
Maragos, Rassias said, also has “two knee replacements ahead of him and a lifetime of pain and immobility.”
“The doctors didn’t do their jobs,” Rassias said. But, he added, it was time for jury to do theirs.
According to Rassias, the jury’s job meant compensating “Chris for the rest of the his life for his economic damages and his non-economic damages.”
They did that, and then some.
This is a breaking story that will be updated.
What follows below is an earlier court story posted Feb. 10th about about the medical treatment that failed a three-time All Pro.
On May 15, 2018, Dr. James P. Bradley, the eminent orthopedist, was designing a rehab plan for Eagles special teams ace Chris Maragos.