Confidential
Settlement – $325,000Facts
The decedent was a 25-year-old woman, who delivered her second child on Oct. 16, 1995. During the latter
portions of labor, the decedent could not feel her contractions because of an epidural anesthetic and began to
push in a dyscoordinate manner. In the last few minutes of labor, she told her husband and defendant physician
that she was having chest pain.
The decedent and her husband were told this was probably from the hard but uncoordinated pushing she had
done during labor. Later that day and through the evening, the decedent mentioned continuing chest discomfort
to her husband, her family, and at least two nurses, who documented the complaint of "lung pain" in the chart.
The nurses evaluated the pain, and decided it was musculoskeletal and did not call the doctor. The next
morning, the decedent again told the doctor about chest discomfort, according to the husband's testimony, but
the doctor again told her the pain was from pushing and ordered no tests of any kind.
The defendant doctor did not remember the conversation but testified that if he had been told of persistent chest
pain, his custom and practice would have been to evaluate it, so he concluded he was not told about persistent
chest pain. He did not do any examination of the heart or lungs at any time during the hospital stay. The
defendant was covering three obstetricians' practices at the time. The decedent went home with an appointment
to return to the doctor in a week.
Over the next three days, she continued to be weak and to have chest discomfort. On the fourth day after
delivery, she collapsed, became unconscious and died. Autopsy showed massive pulmonary embolism likely
originating in pelvic and femoral phlebitis.
Result
Initially, the hospital settled out of the case for $150,000. The case came to trial against the defendant doctor, and the jury found the doctor was not negligent by 9-3 vote. A new trial motion was granted on the grounds of insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict. An appeal by defendant doctor of the granted new trial motion
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