Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

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Jonathan Rabkin, 53, went to a hospital emergency room complaining of the sudden onset of upper abdominal pain radiating to his back. The attending emergency room physician, Dr. Vikram Varma, ordered a chest x-ray and chest CT scan without contrast.

Radiologist Dr. Paul Shieh interpreted the CT scan as showing a 5.2 cm ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm. An aneurysm by definition is an excessive localized enlargement of an artery caused by a weakening of the artery wall. In too many patient cases, an aneurysm left unrecognized and untreated can be deadly.

Rabkin was then admitted for observation and five hours later underwent an enhanced CT scan, which showed a type A aortic dissection.
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Johnny Terrell Sledge, 24, suffered a gunshot wound to his back. He was taken to the DCH Regional Medical Center emergency room where an emergency room physician recognized the need for surgery.

On-call trauma surgeon Dr. Bradley Bilton was paged repeatedly but responded that he was in surgery and that someone else should be called to assist Sledge. The hospital staff could not locate another surgeon; Dr. Bolton was paged again.

Instead of coming to the emergency room after completing the surgical procedure that he was involved in, Dr. Bilton started a second elective surgery instead of coming to the aid of Sledge.
Unfortunately, Sledge died while waiting for an emergency laparotomy. He is survived by his family.
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Gail Ingram went to a hospital emergency room complaining of abdominal pain. She underwent a CT scan, which was interpreted by a radiologist, Dr. Barbara Blanco, as showing possible pancreatitis, a gallstone, and no acute bowel findings. Ingram was 61 years old at that time.

After a four-day hospitalization, she was instructed to consult her primary care physician. Less than two years later, she returned to the emergency room still suffering from abdominal pain. The CT scan revealed a 4-cm lung mass, which led to a lung cancer diagnosis.

Ingram, whose cancer was diagnosed at Stage IV, died just over a month later. She was survived by her husband and two adult children.
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The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously ruled res judicata did not bar Gerald Ward from refiling his voluntarily dismissed lawsuit against Decatur Memorial Hospital. Although the decision of the Supreme Court was unanimous, it was split on the rationale. Ward was refiling a medical-malpractice lawsuit against Decatur Memorial Hospital for negligence that allegedly killed his brother, Clarence Ward.

A Macon County judge granted the hospital’s motion to dismiss the first three versions of Ward’s complaint. All of the orders included permission to replead, and none of the dismissals were “with prejudice,” though some claims were dismissed “without prejudice,” while other counts were asked without being labeled as “with” or “without” prejudice. As Ward fine-tuned the complaint, he abandoned some of the claims.

Shortly before trial was scheduled to start, Ward voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit under Section 2-1009 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure and then refiled the case within a year based on code Section 13-217.
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Six days after undergoing hip replacement surgery and rehabilitation, Alice Underwood, 82, was admitted to Victor Valley Global Medical Center for treatment of a urinary tract infection and dehydration. She suffered a surgical site infection while she was hospitalized, which caused her incision to separate.

Underwood underwent surgery to remove necrotic tissue, after which she was sent to a rehabilitation facility. Twenty-six days later, she died of cardiopulmonary arrest and infection. Underwood was survived by her three adult daughters and a son.

The Underwood family, through a daughter, individually and on behalf of the Underwood estate, sued the hospital alleging it chose not to provide wound care to Underwood for 12 days during her hospitalization. The lawsuit also alleged that the hospital’s nurse negligently sent Underwood to the rehabilitation facility without the appropriate and necessary antibiotics.
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LaQuinta Murray experienced severe pain in her lower extremities. She was just 29 years old at the time. She was admitted to Centennial Hills Hospital Medical Center with a diagnosis of sickle cell crisis, chronic anemia and strep throat. Dr. Mandip Arora ordered both opioid and non-opioid analgesics, as well as strict recording of Murray’s urine output.

Over the next four days, Murray was administered Toradol. She experienced critically high potassium levels and decreased urine output, but the nurses chose not to record this.

Murray then suffered renal failure, which led to fatal cardiac arrest. Murray had been a CNA. She was survived by her husband and minor child.
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Vincent Minor was 28 years old when he underwent gastric bypass surgery. He developed an obstruction, which caused his stomach contents to back up above his lap band. During the surgery to remove the lap band, he began vomiting and aspirated vomit.

He later developed pneumonitis and acute respiratory distress syndrome and remained in a vegetative state until he passed away a month later. Minor was survived by his parents and two siblings.

The Minor family sued Dr. Joyce Hairston, the treating anesthesiologist, alleging that she had chosen not to place a nasogastric tube and failed to evacuate Minor’s stomach contents before intubating him. The lawsuit did not claim lost income.
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The Illinois Supreme Court was asked to determine whether this special interrogatory given to the jury in this lawsuit was in proper form and whether the jury’s answer to the special interrogatory was inconsistent with its general verdict in the plaintiff’s favor.

The Circuit Court of Winnebago County held that the jury’s answer to the special interrogatory was inconsistent with the general verdict and entered judgment in favor of the defendants. The Illinois Appellate Court reversed, 2017 IL App (2d) 161086, finding that the special interrogatory was not in proper form and, therefore, should not have been given to the jury.

In addition, the court determined that because the special interrogatory was ambiguous, the jury’s answer was not necessarily inconsistent with its general verdict. For those reasons, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the appellate court.
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After Ernestine Wilson’s 23-year-old son Brian Curry died from a saddle pulmonary embolism (a blood clot that blocked the large pulmonary artery straddling his lungs), she sued emergency room physician Dr. Eric Moon and Chicago’s St. Bernard Hospital. She claimed that the doctor was negligent in choosing not to diagnose and treat her son’s condition and that the hospital was also liable because of its principal-agent relationship with the doctor. Dr. Moon denied negligence and the hospital moved for summary judgment on the ground that the doctor was an independent contractor.

Wilson reached a settlement with the hospital, but at the trial six weeks later, the doctor called the hospital’s retained expert in pulmonary medicine. The witness testified that Brian’s signs and symptoms did not suggest pulmonary embolism and that what subsequently occurred was a sudden and unsurvivable medical condition regardless of the doctor’s efforts.

Dr. Moon generally adopted the hospital’s expert opinions and thus was not required to submit a second 213(f)(3) disclosure containing all of the same information of an earlier disclosure once the hospital settled with Wilson for the plaintiff.
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This interlocutory appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court was dismissed. A supervisory order was entered remanding the case back to the trial court.

The plaintiff in this case filed a wrongful death and survival action lawsuit alleging medical malpractice of the defendant Union Health Service. The defendant alleged immunity under Section 26 of the Voluntary Health Services Plans Act. The Circuit Court of Cook County judge denied defendant’s Section 2-619 motion on the grounds that a 1988 amendment to Section 26 is unconstitutional.

The denial of the motion to dismiss is an interlocutory ruling, and it was found not to be subject to review by the Supreme Court under Rule 302(a)(1).
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