Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

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Oftentimes cancer medical negligence cases in Illinois hinge on a failure to diagnose cancer in a timely manner. However, a recent Chicago wrongful death settlement deals with a different type of medical negligence surrounding a cancer patient’s treatment. In this case a woman with endometrial cancer died as a result of a perforated bowel, which her estate claimed was the result of her receiving 50 percent more radiation than was necessary.

Decedent Patricia Quirk was diagnosed with stage three endometrial cancer and received all of her radiation treatments at Chicago’s Little Company of Mary Hospital. While the first third of her radiation treatments were appropriate, it was the last two-thirds of her radiation treatment that resulted in the Chicago hospital’s medical negligence. In essence, the decedent was ‘over-radiated’, receiving two times as much radiation at each treatment than was necessary and safe.

Even radiation given in appropriate amounts comes with some negative side effects, including nausea, fatigue/malaise, and hair loss. Yet when given in overwhelmingly large amounts, radiation can have disastrous effects on one’s body, as the decedent’s case unfortunately illustrates. The large doses of radiation eventually caused decedent’s bowel to perforate, or tear, which resulted in a blood infection and her eventual death.

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Bleeding seems like a simple enough problem to correct. We’ve all had a cut or scrape that has resulted in some sort of bleed and we all know the proper way to stop the bleeding: apply pressure and elevate the area. However, when bleeding is internal it is a completely different matter and can result in severe medical complications or death.

This concept is illustrated by a recent Illinois wrongful death settlement where a hospital’s failure to recognize a brain bleed in a timely manner resulted in this man’s death. The decedent had presented to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and was admitted to the hospital’s surgical intensive care unit for neurological observation after he sustained a brain injury as a result of hitting his head in a fall. Upon his admission a CT scan showed a small hemorrhage in his brain, which is basically another way of saying he there was a small bleed in his brain.

The plaintiff’s family alleged that the healthcare providers were medically negligent in their failure to recognize the importance of subsequent signs that indicated that this brain bleed had progressed. Further, they alleged that the doctors should have known and acted on those signs in time to prevent permanent damage and death by ordering an operation that would have relieved the increased pressure in the decedent’s brain.

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A recent Cook County trucking accident settlement raises some interesting question about driver responsibility. The Cook County wrongful death lawsuit was brought by the family of a 47 year-old Illinois auto worker who was killed in a collision with a truck.

The surviving truck driver was not fluent in English and admittedly could not read English. The truck driver therefore was unable to read highway signs warning drivers that an accident had occurred up ahead and advising them to slow down. The truck driver did not slow down and crashed into the rear end of the decedent’s pick-up truck, which was then propelled forwarded and pinned against the median wall. The decedent was trapped in the vehicle as it ignited in flames.

The decedent’s estate claimed that the truck driver was an employee of Ford Air, Inc. and that the company knew or should have know that the driver could not speak or read English. Federal law requires truck drivers to have enough knowledge of English to be able to converse with a police officer. The idea is that in the event of an accident those with commercial driving licenses should be able to provide details about the chain of events. The truck driver in this case clearly did not meet this federal standard, which the estate claimed contributed to the Cook County trucking accident.

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A recently settled Illinois wrongful death case presented a unique theory of liability that targeted the owner of a restaurant more so than the driver who caused the Illinois car accident.

The decedent was tragically killed when an 85 year-old man mistakenly accelerated instead of braking, crashing his Chrysler Sebring into a Subway sandwich shop at a busy Chicago intersection. The decedent was killed when the driver’s vehicle slammed into the store and pinned the patron between the car and the restaurant counter.

The decedent’s estate relied on the Illinois Supreme Court case of Marshall v. Burger King Corp., 222 Ill.2d 422 (2006), in which the Illinois Supreme Court overturned a “no-duty” ruling of the trial court and determined that business owners had the duty to protect patrons from out-of-control vehicles crashing through their walls. Targeting the owner of the premises, in this case Subway, set the current case apart from many other theories of liability. The estate alleged that Subway’s negligence in preventing the Illinois car accident was foreseeable because of the poorly designed parking lot and the lack of protective barriers between the lot and the front of the restaurant.

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A recent Illinois settlement in a Cook County medical malpractice claim sought to compensate the family of a 53 year-old man who died during a heart transplant surgery. The issue in the Illinois wrongful death case was whether the man would have even required the surgery if his internist had correctly interpreted test results from several years preceding his death.

The decedent had undergone regular annual exams with his internist, which each year included an electrocardiogram (EKG) that was performed by the internist. EKGs are typically used to analyze a patient’s heart rhythm and identify any abnormalities. The internist interpreted all of the decedent’s EKGs from 1998 to 2002 to be normal.

However, in November 2002, the man suffered a massive heart attack, which resulted in extensive heart damage. At that point a triple bypass surgery was performed and a pacemaker was placed. However, from this point forward the man was unable to continue his previously-active lifestyle due to his congestive heart failure. Nor was he able to return to his job as a baggage handler because it was too demanding considering his present condition.

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An Illinois resident suffered respiratory failure after being prescribed a narcotic pain reliever following a minor motorcycle accident. The pain reliever also happened to be a respiratory suppressor, which, when coupled with his pre-existing history of sleep apnea, led to his untimely death as a result of the Illinois physician’s medical negligence.

Sleep apnea is a chronic disease that involves pauses in breathing while sleeping. The pauses can range anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes and can occur anywhere from five to fifty times in an hour. The decedent’s sleep apnea put him at increased risk for respiratory complications.

During the decedent’s hospital stay at Edward Hospital in Naperville, the defendant doctor allegedly prescribed the patient a dose of the narcotic pain reliever that exceeded the therapeutic levels in light of his pre-existing sleep apnea. This Illinois medication error directly affected his ability to breathe and led to his wrongful death on the fifth day of his hospitalization as a result of the medical malpractice.

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The family of a 39 year-old woman brought an Illinois wrongful death lawsuit against MacNeal Hospital and other medical professionals. The decedent had allegedly died as a result of medical negligence related to her gastric bypass surgery. A settlement of $3 million was reached between the decedent’s surviving sister and the hospital, nurses and resident physicians.

In the complaint, the decedent’s estate claimed that the medical providers had failed to recognize a leak at the surgical site in a timely manner, and that this failure constituted Illinois medical malpractice. Following the gastric bypass surgery, decedent developed a leak in the area that the small intestine had been sewn up. Before the leak was identified the Illinois resident developed sepsis.

The leak was not recognized until the decedent returned to the emergency room with signs and symptoms of sepsis. These symptoms could include rapid respiratory rate, elevated blood pressure, and elevated temperatures. She was taken to emergency exploratory surgery, where the leak was discovered and repaired. Yet by this time her situation had become grave. She died the next day from peritonitis and multi-system organ failure.

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An Illinois wrongful death case was recently tried and found in favor of the decedent’s widow, who was awarded $5 million by the Cook County jury. The verdict was against Metra and found the Chicago-based railroad liable for the Illinois train accident that caused the decedent’s death.

On the day of the Illinois train accident, the decedent was standing on a train platform at a Berwyn, Illinois train station and waiting for a train to take him to work. He was waiting in the same place he waited every morning, on the northeast corner of the platform. However, on that day the commuter train that normally arrived on the south platform had been re-routed to the station’s north platform due to the approach of an unscheduled freight train, which required the waiting commuters to move to a different track.

A ticketing agent informed those commuters waiting on the south platform of the change in tracks and suggested they cross the train tracks while the gates were down. An announcement was also made over the public address system, however, the north platform that the decedent was standing on was not equipped with speakers. Therefore, what the blind decedent heard was an unclear, muffled message to which he responded to by crossing the tracks.

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In many Illinois medical malpractice cases time is of the essence and can make the difference between a positive or a negative outcome. A recent Chicago wrongful death case typifies this point. The case was brought against a suburban Chicago hospital for the death of a 22 year-old woman who developed sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

The Chicago lawsuit claimed that the hospital’s nursing staff discharged the patient despite her continued symptoms of nausea, severe abdominal pain, and faintness following surgery to treat her endometriosis. The woman returned to the hospital within less than 24 hours after her discharge, this time with complaints of extreme pain. She was prescribed an antibiotic, but it was not actually administered to her until 8 hours after it was ordered. Furthermore, the cause of her severe pain was not discovered for over 18 hours after she returned to the emergency room, depleting even more crucial hours in this woman’s care.

During exploratory surgery it was discovered that she had suffered a perforation in her small bowel, presumably during her recent surgery to treat her endometriosis. Even though surgeons were able to repair the perforated bowel, by this time it was too late. The patient’s condition worsened and she was dead by the following day.

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In 2007, an Illinois factory worker was driving a motorcycle when an SUV turned in front of him, killing him instantly in the collision that followed. The decedent’s family brought an Illinois wrongful death lawsuit against the college student who was driving the SUV and received a settlement of $3 million.

Many drivers forget that automobiles and motorcycles function very differently and each have their own strengths and weaknesses. While a motorcycle is quick and easy to maneuver through traffic, it is also difficult to see. Whereas while it is hard to avoid seeing an SUV, it does have the disadvantage of being difficult to maneuver.

Prior to the settlement in this Illinois motorcycle accident case, the defense attorneys argued that the motorcyclist was at fault for not keeping a proper lookout of the SUV’s activity. But the obvious retort to this is that the SUV did not keep a proper lookout when he entered the motorcyclist’s lane. When driving it is important to remember to pay attention not only to your own vehicle, but to all of those vehicles around you.

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