Departments

Litigation

Practice Areas

Health Care Litigation

Education

J.D., University of Kansas School of Law, 1972
B.S., University of Kansas, 1968

Admissions

Kansas, 2005
Missouri, 1972

Kansas City (Downtown)

Phone: 816.374.0513

Fax: 816.374.0509

vCard

Thomas G. Kokoruda

Department Chair

Thomas G. Kokoruda is the chair of the firm's Litigation Department and the Health Care Litigation practice group. He is a commercial trial lawyer with a focus on hospital liability, physician malpractice and medical staff privilege litigation.

Memberships and Affiliations

American College of Trial Lawyers, Fellow
American College of Legal Medicine
American Health Lawyers Association
Circuit Court Advisory Committee
- Past Chair
Hospital-Medico-Legal Committee
- Past Chair
Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association
- Executive Committee, 1986-94
- President, 1993
Kansas Hospital Attorneys
Missouri Society of Hospital Attorneys
Missouri Supreme Court
- Civil Jury Study Committee, 2000-01
National Health Lawyers Association
University of Kansas School of Law
- Board of Governors, 1991-93

Distinctions

2010 State Local Star recognition by Benchmark Litigation
Received the prestigious Dean of the Trial Bar award from the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, April 2009
Selected for inclusion in Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers, for Personal Injury Defense: Medical Malpractice, 2005-2011
Selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers In America^®1991-2012
- Health Care Law
- Personal Injury Litigation
- Medical Malpractice Law
- Commerical Litigation
- Antitrust Litigation
Ranked in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, General Commercial Litigation, 2008-present; and as leading individual trial lawyer in Health Care Litigation, 2006-2007
Honored by The Kansas City Business Journal as Best of the Bar in Heatlh Care Litigation, 2010
Chosen Best of the Bar for Commercial Litigation, Medical Malpractice Defense by Kansas City Business Journal and he was the highest vote-getter in Health Care Law, 2003-2009

Experience

Mr. Kokoruda's Cases Include:

MacMillan v Midwest Division
Sucessfully obtained dismissal of an antritrust claim in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas against a hospital and two physicians in a suit filed by a physician
Wilman v. Heartland Hospital East
Successfully represented two hospitals in St. Joseph, Missouri, with summary judgment affirmed in an anti-trust conspiracy and monopolization claim by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
State ex rel HMW Development Corporation v. Daugherty,
Mo.Sup.Ct. 965 S.W.2d 841 (Mo. 1998)
Argued significant case before the Missouri Supreme Court resulting in clarification of the peer review statute in Missouri, 537.035 R.S.Mo.
Cammisano v. Trinity Lutheran Hospital
Obtained defense verdict in a case arising out of the death of a 21-year-old mental health patient allegedly as a result of being overdosed with Haldol and allegedly due to improper restraint practices utilized by nursing
Charles R. Wilman v. Saint Joseph Medical Center
Obtained summary judgment on behalf of a hospital in separate state and federal court actions arising out of the revocation of Medical Staff privileges of a surgeon
Heide Carver v. Independence Regional Health Center
Obtained defense verdict in brain damage baby case on behalf of hospital labor and delivery room nurses for alleged negligent failure to monitor labor and to report fetal distress in a sufficient time to perform cesarean section
Jenkins v. Saint Joseph Health Center
Obtained defense verdict on behalf of hospital in first negligent credentialing case tried against a hospital in Missouri. Complication of surgery performed by a non-Board certified neurosurgeon resulted in permanent paralysis of patient
Raquel Green v. Baptist-Lutheran Medical Center
Obtained defense verdict on behalf of hospital in a birth injury case involving profound neurologic injury to a baby delivered vaginally in the face of Group B strep
Shandy v. Kirkpatrick
Obtained defense verdict on behalf of family practice physician in a case wherein the plaintiff alleged that she sustained disabling reflex sympathetic dystrophy as a result of negligent delivery by the physician of a local anesthetic