A hospital north of New York City is on the hook for a $120 million jury verdict stemming from resident physicians overlooking signs of a stroke on CT images.
Jurors deliberated for a day before reaching the “historic” verdict, which is reportedly the largest in Westchester County’s history.
“I’ve been a lawyer for 40 years now, and I’ve never heard of a malpractice verdict like this,” attorney Ben Rubinowitz, who represented the patient and his family, said according to the Westchester Journal News.
The case dates to Nov. 27, 2018, when medics transported commercial real estate broker William R. Lee to Westchester Medical Center around 3 a.m., suspecting he had suffered a stroke. Providers performed a CT scan to check for a clot, but there was no board certified radiologist on-site. Instead, on-call residents examined the images and overlooked signs of a stroke. Some three hours later, an attending radiologist reviewed the images and observed a basilar artery occlusion.
Providers performed a thrombectomy, but Lee (who was 41 at the time) had already suffered serious brain damage. The patient and his family eventually sued in 2020, leading up to the four-week trial that ended on Nov. 30. Formerly of Elmsford, New York, Lee now lives in a California memory care facility.
“Unfortunately, he can no longer be a husband to his wife, a father to his children. It's been a horrific situation for them,” Rubinowitz said, according to the Journal News.
Westchester Medical Center, located in Mount Pleasant New York about 27 miles north of Manhattan, declined to comment to the newspaper. During trial, defense attorneys contended that Lee’s brain damage had already occurred before he was admitted to the hospital.
New York City-based Gair, Gair, Conason issued an announcement about the case on Dec. 4, calling the outcome “historic.”
“This landmark case not only showcases the severe impact of medical negligence but also highlights the exceptional legal expertise of our team of attorneys in achieving justice for victims of medical malpractice,” the law firm said.
Read more about the case here:
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.