Ravensburg. After almost four hours of negotiations at the Ravensburg Regional Court, the settlement offer has been made. Presiding Judge Claudia Schumacher-Diehl proposes 40,000 euros in compensation for pain and suffering and 20,000 euros in damages to both parties. A total of 60,000 euros should compensate Walter Brummel for “fear of death, traumatic experiences and significant impairments” caused by a corona infection in the hospital, according to the judge. The expert rules out the possibility that Walter Brummel became infected before being admitted to the Tettnang clinic.
What the now 59-year-old had to go through in the winter of 2020 is reminiscent of the horrors of the corona pandemic. The store manager of a supermarket in Friedrichshafen was admitted to the Tettnang clinic on December 5th with sudden hearing loss and a negative test result. Six days later, after a PCR test, he learned that he was infected with Covid-19. One day before Christmas Eve, doctors determined that his lungs were at risk of failing. Hours later, the rescue helicopter flew him to the University Hospital in Tübingen. For three and a half weeks, his body fought the virus on a lung machine. The family man was in a coma most of the time.
Court: the impairments are serious
Like the Friedrichshafen Clinic, the Tettnang GmbH Clinic belongs to the municipal clinic association Medicine Campus Bodensee (MCB). Its corona concept envisaged that infected patients would be treated in Friedrichshafen, where the clinic had set up the first isolation ward very early on. Tettnang, on the other hand, was to remain “corona-free”. There was therefore no corona ward. It was only when a Covid outbreak occurred that infected patients were spatially isolated from December 5, 2020.
Corona has left deep scars on Brummel. His lungs can no longer cope with stress, and stairs quickly make him out of breath. In addition to sleep and concentration problems, he has been suffering from depression for almost two years, which often occurs after intensive treatment, confirms expert Marc Lütgehetmann from the University Hospital of Hamburg. Tingling in his hands, numbness in his face, poor liver values, and a lot of medication that he has to take: the court classifies the impairments as serious.
“Extremely difficult to prove” that he was infected in hospital
Two years ago, he therefore sued Klinik Tettnang GmbH for damages. His allegation: He had become infected with the insidious virus here because corona regulations and hygiene standards were disregarded. According to the expert, this is why in December 2020 there was “one of the largest SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in German hospitals” in the second corona wave.
At the conciliation hearing in November 2022, the then judge Matthias Schneider was still skeptical. Legal proceedings on corona cases were new territory. And it was “extremely difficult to prove” that he had become infected in the hospital.
It is also questionable whether hygiene deficiencies in the middle of a pandemic would even be considered grossly negligent. This is especially true since the doctor in charge of the clinic stated in court at the time that there had never been any violations of the rules in the building. To clarify all of this, the regional court commissioned a medical report. Lütgehetmann ruled out an infection before admission to the clinic. If the disease had been symptomatic, the type of virus that the plaintiff had was detectable just two days after infection. The court followed the report and, after taking evidence, declared in a “preliminary assessment” that the Tettnang clinic must therefore assume “full liability”.
The decision will be made by mid-October
Two other questions examined in the report remained unanswered during the hearing: Did the hospital do everything necessary to prevent Covid infections? And did the measures taken meet hygiene standards?
The “abuses” identified here, according to the judge, were no longer discussed. Both sides signaled their provisional agreement to a settlement. The decision will be made by mid-October. There are obviously no comparable rulings from the Corona period. When determining the amount of this sum, the court is basing its decision on cases where patients were infected with a hospital germ (MRSA) or HIV, said Judge Schuhmacher-Diehl.
The lockdown in the clinic
Due to increasing corona infections, the operator of the Tettnang clinic imposed a freeze on admissions on December 10, 2020. At that time, 24 patients had already been infected with the Covid-19 pathogen and had to be isolated, and twelve employees were infected. 84 employees and almost 30 patients were infected with Covid-19 during the peak phase.
