Jury awards woman $7.6M in breast cancer diagnosis-related malpractice case
A Fleming County jury has awarded one Kentucky woman a $7,568,452 payout in a long-running breast cancer malpractice case, local news outlets reported Sept. 29.
The legal dispute dates back to 2015, when Kimberly Johnson, 53 at the time, received a letter from Fleming County Hospital stating that her mammography results were cancer-free. However, 10 months later she discovered that the mailing was a mistake, and she actually needed to return for a biopsy.
The cancer had since then metastasized, according to the complaint, filed in 2016. During trial, attorneys for the radiologist and family practitioner involved questioned why Johnson waited to seek treatment for the disease, local TV station WLEX reported.
Fleming County Hospital issued a statement to Radiology Business in response to the verdict:
"Fleming County Hospital is aware of the recent verdict about a patient issue dating back to the hospital’s previous ownership. All claims against our hospital were dismissed by the trial court in 2020, so it would be inappropriate for us to comment on the jury’s verdict because the verdict pertained to other parties.
Separately, previous media coverage of the case included mischaracterizations concerning alleged editing of the patient’s medical records. Our staff members did not engage in this alleged conduct, our hospital would never support such conduct, and the alleged conduct is not reflective of how our team operates or the care provided to the community at our hospital."
Read more about the case from WLEX at the link below.
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.