The cost to the federal government to resolve medical malpractice cases involving Tripler Army Medical Center over the past decade totaled more than $32 million.

The new information from the U.S. attorney's office in Washington responding to The Honolulu Advertiser's Freedom of Information Act request, amounts to far more than what the newspaper calculated as part of its recent series on the O'ahu hospital.

The Advertiser found roughly $19 million in court judgments, out-of-court settlements and resolution of administrative claims from January 1995 through July 2005. When added to what the newspaper found for the preceding 10 years, the two-decade total topped $61 million. But as the series noted, that calculation understated the cost because it didn't include out-of-court settlements, which sometimes are not disclosed publicly.

The latest numbers, while still not providing a full picture, brings the cost of Tripler malpractice cases based on available numbers to at least $74 million over the past two decades.

What's still missing from that amount is the cost to resolve an undetermined number of out-of-court settlements between 1985 and 1995. The Advertiser previously asked Tripler for such totals, but the hospital didn't respond to the request.

The U.S. attorney's office released the latest numbers after The Advertiser's Tripler series began running this week. The information shows that the tab to resolve malpractice cases that went to court over the past decade totaled roughly $30 million. When the $2.8 million in administrative payments for Tripler cases for that same period was added — a total obtained from the Army through an FOIA request — the overall cost climbed to nearly $33 million.

Prior to publication of the series, a representative from the U.S. attorney's office twice told the newspaper that it didn't have records indicating how much was paid to resolve the court cases over the past 10 years. She could not be reached for comment yesterday to explain the discrepancy.

Over the past 10 years, 34 cases were settled out of court, costing the government more than $15 million, according to the U.S. attorney's office, which defends the federal government in such cases. The Advertiser had found only two cases totaling $1 million in that period.

Reach Rob Perez at rperez@honoluluadvertiser.com.