Carrie A. Newcomer v. HHS - Influenza, left shoulder injury related to vaccine administration (SIRVA) (2020)

Carrie A. Newcomer filed her petition on September 28, 2018, alleging that an influenza vaccination administered on October 4, 2016 caused a left shoulder injury related to vaccine administration.

The petition stated that she developed extreme soreness and tenderness after the injection and that the effects lasted more than six months. She was represented by Robert S.

Meitus of Meitus Gelbert Rose LLP. Respondent disputed the claim.

In the parties' stipulation, respondent denied that Newcomer suffered a Table SIRVA, denied that the influenza vaccine caused her left shoulder injury or any other injury, and denied that any current condition was vaccine caused. The public staged record does not include a litigated causation ruling or expert analysis.

The available public document gives a modest but important part of Newcomer's story: the first identified complaint was extreme soreness and tenderness after the flu shot, and the injury was serious enough to support a claim of residual effects beyond six months. The stipulation does not provide the exact hour or day of onset, examination findings, range-of-motion measurements, imaging, injections, physical therapy, surgery, medication use, work restrictions, or daily-life effects.

Because those details are absent from the public stipulation, the summary cannot fill them in. Chief Special Master Brian H.

Corcoran found the settlement reasonable and adopted the stipulation as the decision on November 21, 2020. Newcomer received $50,000.00 as a lump sum for all damages available under the Vaccine Act, and judgment was directed in that amount.