Smith, et. al. v. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (Superior Court Windham Unit, State of VT—filed April 16, 2021) On November 6, 2018, our plaintiff, Richard Smith, underwent hip replacement surgery at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. The revision itself was at first successful however within the next month or so, Smith began to grow very sick with an aggressive bacterial infection that required many long rounds of intravenous antibiotics, repeated blood draws, and, eventually, an oral round of antibiotics that lasted over four months. After remaining in the dark for almost a full year as to why he was became so sick and suffered such a long, painful and complicated, failed recovery, Smith and his wife, Sheila, were finally told by the Risk Manager at BMH that due to faulty communication among medical personnel, a defective surgical sponge that had previously been recalled was never removed from stock for use by surgeons—as it should have been—based on instructions from the manufacturer. Instead, the contaminated sponge was utilized during Smith’s operation and caused his very serious infection. Smith was never able to fully recover as a result of this egregious hospital error. He still experiences severe pain and a limited range of motion and will undergo several additional debilitating surgical procedures. Previously active and robust, he and Sheila now have a diminished ability to participate in life’s activities together. Our firm plans to hold the hospital accountable for their deviation from the standard of care—not once, but TWICE—considering their failure to even disclose to Mr. Smith that their careless mistake was a direct cause of his painful and traumatic post-operative disability.