She went into the medical care system not paralyzed and then came out paralyzed; I would say that it is safe to assume that someone fucked up along the way. You usually don't expect to leave the medical care system in significantly worse shape than that in which you entered.

From my reading of the second link in my first post of this thread, even though the act of reading seems to recently be a struggle for me, it would seem that some of the miscommunication/mishandling that led to this result stemmed from MountainView's desire to transfer her to a different facility. To me, that first points to a problem with the whole insurance system vis-a-vis, "In network, out of network," bullshit where I think emergency treatment should just be done, and insurance just pay for it, at least up until the point where you have the patient leaving the facility under their own power. Obviously, transferring out of facility because your facility does not have the tools to treat the patient is a different matter.

Otherwise, I truly don't see the point of having insurance. If you can't have the hospital treat you for an emergency until such time that you are discharged (without going to another hospital) and have the insurance pay for it, then what the hell does the insurance exist for in the first place?

But, that's neither here nor there. The jury found that the duty of care was breached, and if you're more concerned with shipping the patient somewhere else than you are with providing the patient with care, then I can certainly see the jury's point on this one. I would say it is that aspect that creates the malpractice, not the mere fact that there was a medical accident.