Fulton County Jury Awards $15 Million Over Veteran's Death From Mishandled Post-Surgical Fluid Leak

On April 30, 2018, Byung 'Ben' Oh, a retired U.S. Army veteran, fell from a ladder while working in his yard and fractured a bone in his back. He was admitted to Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center and had spine surgery on May 4. The claims that later went to a jury were about what happened after that operation.

In the days that followed, Oh developed a chyle leak, a buildup of lymphatic fluid that can follow spine and abdominal surgery when lymphatic vessels are disturbed. Radiologist Dr. Barry Jeffries performed a suprapubic catheterization, a procedure that runs a catheter through the abdominal wall into the bladder, but the family alleged he placed the catheter outside the bladder instead. The misplaced catheter drained and worsened the leak. Over 11 days, about 87 liters of the milky fluid, roughly 23 gallons, came out of Oh's body.

His attending physician, Dr. Amy Wyrzykowski, failed to coordinate care among the specialists treating him, did not personally review critical imaging, and dismissed the significance of the fluid loss as Oh's condition worsened, the family alleged. Their experts told the jury that the standard of care required someone to take ownership of an abnormality that large and get it investigated. Oh went into septic shock, his organs began failing, and he died on July 21, 2018, at 77, less than three months after the fall that first brought him to the hospital.

Oh's wife and daughter sued in Fulton County State Court in April 2020, naming Jeffries and his practice, Diagnostic Imaging Specialists, and Wyrzykowski and her employer, Wellstar Medical Group, along with two other physicians who had treated Oh: nephrologist Dr. Khalid Iqbal and urologist Dr. Thomas Schoborg. The case was captioned Oh v. Jeffries, case number 20EV002508. Every defendant denied wrongdoing and argued the care had been reasonable, with Schoborg calling the leak an incredibly rare condition whose diagnosis was complicated by that rarity.

Trial began on July 21, 2026, the eighth anniversary of Oh's death. On the afternoon of August 4 the jury cleared Iqbal and Schoborg and their practices. It found Wyrzykowski and Wellstar Medical Group 67.5 percent at fault and Jeffries and Diagnostic Imaging Specialists 32.5 percent at fault. That evening it awarded $15 million: $13 million for the full value of Oh's life and $2 million for his conscious pain and suffering.

Lloyd Bell of Bell Law Firm was lead counsel for the family, trying the case with co-counsel Shuli Green of Green Injury Law. Lawyers for the two defendants the jury found at fault did not comment on the verdict. Two days after it came in, Bell told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the case had been resolved to the family's satisfaction, and a lawyer for one of the cleared defendants said the trial had left the parties with finality.