Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

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This case arises out of an appeal taken after the Circuit Court of Cook County judge entered judgment on the verdict in favor of Dr. John Pantano and Suburban Lung Associates, S.C. in a medical malpractice action. The lawsuit, brought by the special administrator of the Estate of Viola Morrisroe, claimed that her death occurred after a bronchoscopy during which biopsies were performed by Dr. Pantano. It was asserted that the trial judge was in error for (1) barring Morrisroe’s expert from utilizing two CT scans during his testimony to demonstrate that the size of a mass in her lung had not increased in size; and (2) sustaining defense counsel’s objections to certain statements in plaintiff’s counsel’s closing argument relating to informed consent claim.

In 1999, Morrisroe was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and emphysema by pulmonologist Dr. Edward Diamond who was the president of Suburban Lung Associates, S.C. Her medical condition was monitored by Dr. Diamond and, in 2006, she began obtaining routine CT scans. In February 2009, a CT scan of her lungs indicated a new mass had formed in the upper right lobe. Dr. Diamond ordered further testing in the form of a PET scan. The PET scan indicated that, while unlikely, cancer could not be ruled out. Dr. Diamond discussed the results of the scans with her and recommended that another CT scan be performed in four months.

By 2009, Dr. Diamond’s examinations found that Morrisroe’s lung function had significantly decreased. While her lung function was at 40% in the beginning of the year, by the summer her lung function was only 26%, prompting Dr. Diamond to downgrade her COPD from “severe” to “very severe.”
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The appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court arose from the Circuit Court of Peoria County, which granted the motion of the defendants, Dr. Clarissa Rhode and Central Illinois Radiological Associates Ltd. The plaintiff — Randall Moon — filed a complaint under the Illinois Wrongful Act (740 ILCS 180/1, et seq.) and the Survival Act (755 ILCS 5/27-6). The complaint was dismissed as time-barred. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the dismissal and held that the two-year statute of limitations for filing the complaint began to run at the time of the decedent’s death and not after the plaintiff discovered defendants’ alleged medical negligence.

On May 18, 2009, Randall Moon’s mother, 90-year-old Kathryn Moon, was admitted to Proctor Hospital in Peoria, Ill., for rectal prolapse. On May 20, 2009, she underwent a perineal proctectomy. During her hospitalization, she experienced numerous complications including labored breathing, pain, fluid overload, pulmonary infiltrates, pneumoperitoneum, sepsis and an elevated white blood cell count.

On May 23, a CT scan of her chest and abdominal area was ordered. Dr. Rhode, a radiologist, read the CT scans on May 24, 2009. Randall W. Moon, who is Kathryn Moon’s son and the plaintiff in this case, returned from out-of-state to his mother’s bedside on the evening of May 27, 2009. Her oxygen levels had significantly dropped and she was not awake or responsive. Two days later she died in the hospital.
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The Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to accept for consideration a case appealed from the Illinois Appellate Court for the 1st District stating that this is a case of first impression. The case of Sheri Lawler v. The University of Chicago Medical Center was decided early this year, reversing a Cook County judge’s decision that disallowed an amendment to the medical malpractice lawsuit for wrongful death.

In the appellate court decision, the court held that the plaintiff’s estate was allowed to add new wrongful-death claims even after the statute of repose had expired.

The original lawsuit was brought by Jill Prusak who sued The University of Chicago Medical Center and Advocate Christ Hospital and a doctor and some others for medical malpractice in August 2011. It was claimed that the doctors and hospitals misdiagnosed her central nervous system lymphoma, a tumor affecting the brain or spinal cord as a macular pathology, which is a condition in a patient’s retinas.
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Betty Spotts fell and fractured her pelvis at her home on Feb. 10, 2011. The fracture required surgery at Ingalls Memorial Hospital. She was transferred to the defendant Providence Health Care in South Holland, Ill., on Feb. 14, 2011. Providence Health Care was supposed to provide a course of rehabilitation, including physical therapy and occupational therapy.

Just days after her admission to Providence Health Care, she began exhibiting symptoms of low oxygen levels (hypoxia) including shortness of breath, allegedly indicative of pulmonary emboli. Spotts was 81 years old.

Her symptoms got worse on Feb. 21, 2011, at which time a pulmonary embolism was diagnosed. She was readmitted to Ingalls Memorial Hospital where treatment was ultimately unsuccessful. She died on Feb. 22, 2011 survived by two adult children.
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On Aug. 4, 2011, Jill Prusak filed a medical malpractice case within both the two-year statute of limitation and four-year statute of repose under Section 13-212(a). The lawsuit contained a two-count complaint against the defendants, University of Chicago Medical Center and other medical providers who have since been dismissed from the case. It was alleged that Dr. Rama Jager misdiagnosed Prusak’s macular pathology and that this misdiagnosis led to the defendants’ choosing to not recognize nervous system lymphoma.

The first count alleged negligence against the University of Chicago defendants and asserted that Dr. Jager was an agent or apparent agent of the University of Chicago defendants.  The second count of the complaint made the same allegations with respect to Advocate defendants and the Christ Hospital defendants.

Prusak died on Nov. 24, 2013 after the expiration of the four-year statute of repose. On March 11, 2014, the trial court granted Prusak’s daughter, Sheri Lawler, leave to file an amended complaint, substituting herself as party plaintiff and as the executor of Prusak’s estate.

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Benjamin Serico was 58 years old when he underwent a colonoscopy done by a colorectal surgeon, Dr. Robert Rothberg. Dr. Rothberg informed Serico that the test did not reveal any signs of colon cancer.

Two years later, Serico was diagnosed with having metastatic colon cancer; despite a treatment plan, Serico later died of the cancer. He had been an assistant professor and was survived by his wife and two sons.

The Serico family sued Dr. Rothberg, claiming that his choosing not to remove a polyp during the colonoscopy procedure and then failing to properly perform the test, led to the late diagnosis of cancer. The jury’s verdict was $6 million in favor of the estate of Serico and his wife for the wrongful death and medical malpractice.

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Gary, 44, suffered from chronic neck pain. He underwent a cervical injection procedure at a surgical center and was treated by an anesthesiologist. After Gary was placed lying faced down during this procedure, the surgical staff discovered that Gary was not breathing. He was resuscitated and hospitalized. However, Gary died six months later due to complications from hypoxia or a deprivation of oxygen, which undoubtedly occurred while he was undergoing the cervical injection and was not breathing.

Gary had been a railroad worker earning about $90,000 a year and was survived by his wife and two minor children.

Gary’s family filed a lawsuit against the anesthesiologist alleging that the doctor chose not to monitor Gary during the cervical injection procedure and failed to timely respond to the fact that Gary’s vital signs showed signs of hypoxia. It was also maintained that the doctor chose not to intervene before Gary suffered the hypoxic event.

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Carol Haas was 68 years old when she went to a nearby hospital where she was diagnosed with a myocardial infarction — a heart attack. She underwent an angioplasty performed by a cardiologist, Dr. Kevin Boyle.

Apparently because of some blocked artery or arteries, she underwent an angioplasty, which is a method used to open up clogged or blocked arteries. This procedure is performed by a cardiologist who threads a thin tube through a blood vessel in the arm or groin up to the involved site in the artery. The tube has a tiny balloon on the end. When the tube is in place, the doctor inflates the balloon to push the plaque outward against the wall of the artery. This widens the artery and restores blood flow. During that procedure, Haas developed extensive intracoronary thrombi, or clots and other heart damage; she required an emergency coronary bypass.

Haas suffered a cardiogenic shock and was transferred to another hospital so that she could be evaluated for a heart transplant. Unfortunately, she died before the evaluation. Haas was survived by her husband and five adult children.

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Darian Wisekal had a pap smear in August 2008. The slide was sent to Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp). A LabCorp technologist errantly interpreted the slide as “negative for intraepithelial lesion and malignancy.” A squamous intraepithelial lesion (SIL) is an abnormal growth of cells on the surface of the cervix, commonly referred to as squamous cells. When diagnosed, this condition may lead to cervical cancer but can be diagnosed using a pap smear. Wisekal died of cervical cancer some three years after the errant read of the slides. She was survived by her husband and two daughters.

John Wisekal, Darian’s husband and her personal representative of the estate, filed a medical malpractice and wrongful death case in Florida’s state court. The lawsuit was removed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The Wisekal family claimed that as a result of the misread, Wisekal’s cervical cancer spread and became untreatable. The defendants denied a standard of care failure and also maintained that the disease, cervical cancer, which was the cause of her premature death, was not subject to diagnosis in 2008. The defendants argued that even if the LabCorp cytotechnologist had correctly interpreted the relevant Pap smear as atypical, she would not have presented with cervical cancer.

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On Jan. 12, 2009, Paul Vanderhoof was admitted to the hospital for the surgical removal of his gallbladder. This procedure is also called a cholecystectomy. During the surgery, the surgeon, Dr. Richard Berk, severed the patient’s common bile duct after he misidentified it as the cystic duct. Another surgeon was brought in to perform emergency reconstructive surgery to repair the severed duct.

Vanderhoof remained in the hospital for a week after the surgery during which time he was treated for an intermittent, controlled bile leak. A day after his discharge from the hospital he was readmitted with complaints of chest and abdominal pain. For the next two months, Vanderhoof remained an inpatient at two hospitals and a rehab nursing facility. He continued to suffer bile leakage, develop a large liver abscess and pneumonia and ultimately died of septic shock in the hospital on March 19, 2009.

Vanderhoof’s wife, Doris, brought a wrongful death and survival action lawsuit against the surgeon Dr. Berk and NorthShore University HealthSystem. Dr. Berk’s practice, NorthShore University HealthSystem Faculty Practice Associates, was later added as a defendant. When Doris Vanderhoof died, her daughter, Carol Vanderhoof, became the special administrator of her father’s estate. She filed an amended complaint claiming that during her father’s bile duct surgery, Dr. Berk “negligently and carelessly surgically transected” the common bile duct, “failed to perform the necessary precautionary methods to ensure a safe gallbladder removal,” and “failed to call for assistance from a specialist with expertise in biliary surgery” before cutting the common bile duct.

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