Gwinnett Widow Settles for $6 Million After Judge Vacates $18.3 Million Verdict
After trial: The $18,300,000 figure was the jury's July 2025 verdict. Gwinnett County State Court Judge Ronda Colvin later vacated that verdict in full and ordered a new trial; the sources reviewed do not disclose the specific ground for her order. Rather than retry the case, Cardiovascular Group PC settled for $6,000,000 in June 2026, the amount reported here as the case result. Colon and Rectal Clinic LLC and Dr. Kota Venkatesh resolved their portion of the case separately and confidentially, for an amount not made public. No appeal is pending; the case is closed.
Won by Bell Law Firm.
Ronald Yarbrough, a 64-year-old Air Force veteran from Gwinnett County, died in July 2019 after a heart attack that followed elective colon surgery. His widow, Glenda Yarbrough, sued the cardiology practice that had been managing his heart care, alleging its letter told him a CT calcium scan showed no significant calcification when the scan had in fact found heavy plaque in a critical coronary artery, and the case also went to trial against the surgeon who operated without a cardiac workup. A Gwinnett County jury awarded $18.3 million in July 2025, apportioning 70 percent of the fault to the cardiologist's practice and 30 percent to the surgeon's clinic, but the trial judge later vacated that verdict and ordered a new trial. Rather than retry the case, the cardiology practice settled with Yarbrough's widow for $6 million in June 2026, and the surgeon's clinic resolved its part of the case separately and confidentially.
What happened
On October 26, 2018, Ronald Yarbrough had a CT calcium scan of his heart at a Gwinnett County hospital. The scan put the calcium score in his left anterior descending artery at 469, a number that signals heavy plaque and calls for further cardiac evaluation. A letter that went out from the practice of his cardiologist, Dr. Lance Friedland, at Cardiovascular Group PC, told him his results showed "no significant calcification." His lawyers argued at trial that the rest of the letter was accurate and that a single word, the word "no," turned a warning into a clearance.
Yarbrough, a 64-year-old Air Force veteran and retired postal worker, developed abdominal trouble the following spring. A colonoscopy on May 9, 2019 found benign polyps and a non-obstructive mass, and a surgeon, Dr. Kota Venkatesh of Colon and Rectal Clinic LLC, took him into the operating room for a colectomy on the afternoon of June 4, 2019. About a day and a half later, in the early hours of June 6, his troponin levels began climbing and his EKG showed a heart starved of blood.
The damage sent him to bypass surgery. From the afternoon of June 21 into the early morning of June 22, surgeons at Emory St. Joseph's Hospital worked on his heart for roughly ten hours, abandoning a minimally invasive robot-assisted approach partway through and opening his chest instead. His kidneys were failing within a day of that operation and he went into cardiogenic shock. After two and a half more weeks his family decided to let him go. He died of organ failure on July 12, 2019, five weeks after a colon operation that was meant to be routine.
His widow, Glenda Yarbrough, filed suit in Gwinnett County State Court on May 8, 2020, naming Friedland, Cardiovascular Group PC and the hospital system that screened her husband before surgery. Venkatesh and Colon and Rectal Clinic were defendants by the time the case reached trial.
The trial ran from July 22 to July 29, 2025. The jury returned $18.3 million, $12 million of it for pain and suffering and $6.3 million in other damages, and assigned 70 percent of the fault to Friedland and Cardiovascular Group and 30 percent to Venkatesh and Colon and Rectal Clinic.
The verdict did not stand. Gwinnett County State Court Judge Ronda Colvin granted a motion for a new trial, wiping out the $18.3 million award. Rather than try the case a second time, Cardiovascular Group PC settled with Glenda Yarbrough for $6 million in June 2026. Colon and Rectal Clinic resolved its portion of the case separately and confidentially, and Venkatesh did not respond to a reporter's request for comment.
Lloyd Bell of Bell Law Firm tried the case for Glenda Yarbrough and represented her through the settlement that closed it. No appeal is pending.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 29 2026: $6 million settlement amount and date, the vacated $18.3 million July 2025 verdict, Judge Ronda Colvin's new-trial order, the co-defendant clinic's confidential separate settlement, and attorney of record (Lloyd Bell)
- 2.Courtroom View Network, July 2025: original $18.3 million verdict breakdown, jury fault apportionment (70/30), case number 20-C-02832-S4, trial dates, plaintiff's and defense counsel by name, and the miscommunicated calcium-scan letter
- 3.Bell Law Firm (firm)
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