On Dec. 11, 2009, plaintiff Rhonda Rose, 39, a registered licensed dental hygienist whose primary care physician was located at Motion Picture & Television Fund’s outpatient clinic in Valencia, went to the blood draw station in the clinic for blood tests after her annual physical exam. She claimed that Doris Goede, another licensed vocational nurse, was unhappy about performing a blood draw during her lunch break after being asked to do so by Rose’s primary care physician. Rose claimed that as a result, the blood draw was negligently performed, resulted in her suffering Type II complex regional pain syndrome. Rose sued Motion Picture & Television Hospital. She alleged that the negligent blood draw performed by the defendant’s employee, Goede, constituted medical malpractice. Rose claimed that Goede failed to follow vocational nursing standards by not wearing gloves and not following infection control guidelines. She also claimed that Goede inserted the needle into the antecubital space in her left arm, hit a nerve, and then moved the needle and allowed it to drop to the side while still in her arm. Rose claimed that as a result, she felt an immediate electrical shock, as well as tingling and burning down her forearm and into to her fourth and fifth fingers, followed by numbness, all the while feeling extreme pain. Goede claimed that she had not complete memory of the alleged blood draw. Defense counsel contended that Goede acted within the standard of care in performing the venipuncture, as Rose’s version of the facts did not comport with the physical and medical evidence. Specifically, counsel contended that Rose’s description of the blood draw station did not match its actual layout and that a blood draw could not have been completed if a nerve was hit., Rose claimed that a nerve was hit during the blood draw, causing immediate electrical shock, as well as tingling and burning down her forearm and into to her fourth and fifth fingers. She claimed that once the needle was rotated out of the nerve, the tingling stopped, but numbness followed. She further claimed that she felt extreme pain during the entire incident. Rose alleged that she was then allowed to leave the clinic while still in extreme pain following the completion of the blood draw without arranging to have a medical assessment of the venipuncture site after she complained that the procedure caused pain/discomfort radiating down her left arm like an electric shock. Rose, who was left-hand dominant, claimed she had a huge hematoma forming in the antecubital space and continued to have pain, numbness and coldness in her entire left arm and hand. Her medical experts ultimately diagnosed her as having Type II complex regional pain syndrome, also known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy or causalgia, a chronic pain condition. For treatment, one of the plaintiff’s experts, a pain management physician, provided Rose with temporary relief by giving her seven stellate ganglion block procedures. She also received psychological counseling from her expert psychologist for her debilitating pain syndrome. The plaintiff’s pain management expert testified that Rose will require an implantation of a spinal cord stimulator in order to divert and reduce the pain. Rose claimed that her disability prevented her from returning to work due to not being able to hold dental instruments. Thus, Rose claimed a future loss of earnings between $350,000 to $700,000, based on an annual salary of $70,000 for a 5-to-10-year period to rehabilitate her arm and hand following the implantation of the spinal cord stimulator. She also claimed a past loss of earnings of $136,000, past medicals of $26,000, and future medicals of $130,000 for the implantation of the spinal cord stimulator and the replacement batteries. In addition, Rose claimed general damages of at least $250,000, the MICRA cap on non-economic damages. Rose’s husband, Jonathan, originally brought a derivative claim for loss of consortium, but voluntarily dismissed his claim prior to jury selection. Defense counsel contended that Rose’s treating physicians failed to follow the internationally-accepted diagnostic criteria for CRPS. More importantly, the defense’s expert neurologist and neuropsychologist opined that Rose’s treating physicians failed to diagnose a somatoform disorder that was characterized by the manifestation of physical pain from suppressed emotional trauma, as they claimed Rose had a history of significant negative events in her life followed by pain syndromes in other parts of her body for which her physicians could not find an organic cause. However, Rose disputed this and claimed that she only had a history of pain syndrome in one other part of her body but that an organic cause was later found.