Wrongful Death

When someone dies because their doctors were careless in their diagnosis or treatment, the decedent’s family may pursue a wrongful death action. The heirs of the decedent can seek damages for the loss of the decedent’s love, comfort, affection, companionship, society, moral support, guidance, assistance with household activities, financial support, and funeral/burial expenses.  California law does not allow the heirs to recover damages for sorrow, grief, or emotional distress from the death.

Sometimes, the decedent had existing medical problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney disease, or diabetes.  For example, a patient goes to a hospital with chest pain and the Emergency Room doctor fails to diagnose an impending heart attack which happens the following day.  If the heart attack led to cascading complications ending in death, the negligent care may be a legal cause of the death along with pre-existing kidney and heart disease.

As a Los Angeles Medical Malpractice lawyer, I have handled many wrongful death cases involving colon, lung, breast, kidney, uterine, and liver cancer where there was negligence that delayed the diagnosis and treatment of the cancer.  A major issue in these types of cases is proving the delay in diagnosis was long enough to have made a significant difference in the outcome.  The defense will have well-qualified experts to say that even if the cancer was diagnosed earlier, it would not have made a difference.  An expert in pathology may be needed to discuss the growth rate of the cancer, an oncology expert needed to discuss staging and how the cancer would have been at an earlier stage when the doctor should have made the diagnosis, and a family practice expert to say the patient’s doctor was negligent.  The longer the delay, the more likely it made a difference.  California law does not permit damages for a “lost chance” of a cure.  There must be more than a 50% probability to be actionable.  Sadly, some cancers have an extremely poor prognosis even if diagnosed sooner such as stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, and some brain cancers.

Other wrongful death cases have been against surgeons ignoring signs of post-operative bleeding after a surgery and delaying requests for assistance until it’s too late.  Some examples include:  

An 18-year-old college student had a CT scan for acute abdominal pain and the radiologist failed to see signs of a small bowel obstruction where the bowel was twisted around itself and choking off the blood supply to the intestines – a surgical emergency.  Instead of being hospitalized and having a surgical evaluation that would have led to life-saving surgery, the boy was sent home.  When he returned by ambulance the following day, a surgeon and nursing staff delayed surgery and by the time it was done it was too late and the patient died.  I represented the parents.  The defense had well-qualified experts to say the CT scan did not show the obstruction and even he was admitted that afternoon, he would have died anyway.  The defense also blamed family members for not calling an ambulance sooner and that paramedics delayed transport.  I was able to overcome all those arguments.

In a case arising out of a failure to perform a timely c-section in the face of fetal distress, the nurses kept calling the obstetrician, but he was busy playing poker with other doctors in the physician’s lounge.  None of that was in the records but came out during depositions of the nursing staff.  Although the obstetrician denied it and blamed the nurses, another doctor playing poker with the OB confirmed it.  By the time the C-section was done, the baby was severely brain damaged and died.

I have handled many other wrongful death cases involving anesthesiologists for not paying careful attention to falling vital signs during surgery, or not responding to a respiratory arrest during surgery, as well as recovery room nurses not telling the surgeon of significant changes in the patient’s condition. My 45+ years of experience as a Los Angeles Medical Malpractice lawyer can make a difference.