Linda Copeland v. HHS - Influenza, right shoulder injury related to vaccine administration (SIRVA) (2025)

On July 10, 2024, Linda Copeland, then 64, filed a petition alleging that an influenza vaccine administered on December 5, 2023 caused a right shoulder injury related to vaccine administration. The entitlement dispute was unusually fact-specific for a SIRVA case.

The vaccination record listed the shot as given in the left shoulder, but Ms. Copeland consistently reported that the injection was actually placed in her right shoulder and that right shoulder pain began immediately.

She had an older right-shoulder history, but no recent comparable shoulder complaints. One day after vaccination, she saw her thoracic surgeon for lung-cancer care without mentioning shoulder pain; in her affidavit she explained that the pain worsened over the following days and weeks, limiting overhead reaching, lying on the right side, and daily activity.

By January 2024, internist Serge Alerte, M.D., documented right shoulder pain lasting about four weeks. MRI showed supraspinatus and infraspinatus tendinitis, bursitis, partial-thickness tearing, and related findings.

Ms. Copeland later messaged her thoracic team that the nurse gave the shot in her right shoulder and that she had pain, weakness, and discomfort since the injection.

Orthopedist Abhishek Ganta, M.D., found decreased range of motion, impingement signs, and rotator cuff tendinitis or bursitis after flu vaccination, treated her with steroid injection and physical therapy, and later gave a second injection. She sought a second orthopedic opinion from Julian Sonnenfeld, M.D., and later another from Garret Garofolo-Gonzalez, M.D., who diagnosed adhesive capsulitis and recommended continued conservative treatment.

Chief Special Master Brian H. Corcoran found that the evidence preponderated in favor of right-shoulder administration and onset within forty-eight hours.

On August 25, 2025, he awarded Ms. Copeland $75,000.00 for pain and suffering and $305.00 in unreimbursed medical expenses, for a total of $75,305.00.