Karen Terry
Personal Injury Attorney
Karen Terry has tried and won many personal injury cases during her 27 years at Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley in West Palm Beach. However, there are a few that stand out in her mind.
“One of the verdicts of which I am most proud is a case we tried in Polk County against Walgreens for wrongly filling a prescription for Coumadin and causing a 42-year-old woman to bleed into her brain and later die. The jury awarded $25.8 million to her husband and three minor children,” says Terry, who began her career at the powerhouse Palm Beach County trial law firm. “It had a lot of complicating factors and that was a bittersweet ending.”
Not only has Terry’s career been filled with multimillion-dollar legal victories, but she also set precedent by achieving the first verdict in the U.S. against a medical concierge company for the negligence of one of its physicians, resulting in an $8 million verdict for her client.
“I am particularly proud because I plead some causes of action that had never been litigated before in this type of case, including negligent representation and false advertising. They advertised exceptional care and exceptional results. Needless to say, my client didn’t get exceptional results,” Terry says.
Terry, who was born in South Florida, is Florida Bar Board Certified in civil trial law and health care law. She is recent past president of the Palm Beach Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates and has been inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Terry says over the years she has gained a lot of patience and empathy.
“You have to have compassion to step into the shoes of your clients to be able to communicate their story effectively to a jury,” she says.
While she always tries to settle cases for a fair amount. “If we can’t, I am the first one to recommend we go to a jury trial and let jurors decide what fair is,” she says. “Most people come to us because we are prepared to fight the fight all the way.”
Terry is happily married and has two children and two grandchildren.
Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, 2139 Palm Beach Lakes Blvd., West Palm Beach, 561-686-6300, searcylaw.com
The Professional Edge Special Advertising Section