Leon Aussprung

Leon Aussprung, M.D., J.D., LL.M practices in the area of catastrophic injury litigation, including medical malpractice, product liability, and other complex personal injury cases. Additionally, he represents qui tam Relators in health care fraud and abuse litigation.

Shortly after joining Kline & Specter in January 2001, Dr. Aussprung worked with Tom Kline in the Matteo case, a complex case that involved the death of Suzanne Wester Matteo, who suffered internal bleeding following a routine medical procedure. Her doctors did not notice the bleeding nor did they act to help her. Suzanne’s husband, Tony Matteo, performed emergency surgery and saved his wife’s life, but days later she suffered respiratory arrest. Tony Matteo sued his late wife’s doctors and a jury returned a $25 million verdict in his favor.

In March 2006, Dr. Aussprung was co-counsel in a case in which a woman died after an elective bowel resection due to a bowel perforation and sepsis because her surgeon failed to timely diagnose the problem. The trial resulted in a jury verdict of nearly $2.7 million, which was the largest verdict ever in a death case in Lackawanna County. (See the Hook case.)

Dr. Aussprung has handled a multitude of medical malpractice suits with Kline & Specter, many of them resulting in substantial settlements. In two cases against Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, settlements were reached in suits in which children died, one a five-year-old boy who was over-transfused during a surgery and the other a two-month-old infant whose infection following surgery was never properly diagnosed.

Among Dr. Aussprung’s other cases that produced substantial settlements was that of a teenager who had been severely brain injured at three years of age when his diabetes mellitus was not

properly managed. In yet another case, he helped win a settlement for a baby who was brain injured after getting improper care during delivery by a nurse midwife.

Dr. Aussprung earned his B.A. degree from the University of Virginia in 1987, his M.D. degree from Jefferson Medical College in 1991, and his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1997. In 2006 he received an LL.M. in Trial Advocacy, with honors, from Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Dr. Aussprung is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and has been admitted to practice law by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Dr. Aussprung received residency training in pediatrics at the Medical Center of Delaware and Thomas Jefferson University and has been board certified in pediatrics since 1994. Before becoming a practicing attorney, Dr. Aussprung was a pediatrician at duPont Hospital for Children and Thomas Jefferson University.

Dr. Aussprung’s areas of interest include medical malpractice, complex pediatric health law issues, health care fraud and abuse litigation, and the federal False Claims Act. He has written and lectured on the topic of federal civil health care fraud and abuse.

He is a member of the Philadelphia Bar Association, the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia trial lawyers associations and the American Association for Justice.