$6.5 Million Verdict for Family of Man, 25, Who Died After Mercy Hospital Twice Missed His Lyme Disease

In June 2017, Peter Smith, 25, of Pennsylvania visited Mercy Hospital in Portland twice within two weeks, each time presenting with fever, chills, headaches, dizziness, and a characteristic target-shaped rash. On the first visit, June 7, the treating physician, Dr. John Henson, documented those symptoms and then wrote "no sign of Lyme disease" in the chart, attributing the illness to a viral infection and a skin condition called erythema multiforme. Smith returned on June 21. His rash had persisted and his symptoms had worsened. Dr. Henson again did not diagnose Lyme disease, adding hives to the chart.

Five days later, on June 25, Smith collapsed at home and arrived by ambulance at Maine Medical Center, a separate Portland hospital. Clinicians there immediately diagnosed Lyme disease and identified a complication called Lyme carditis, in which the Lyme bacteria had invaded the heart tissue. Smith was transferred to a hospital in Pennsylvania, close to his parents, Angela and Richard Smith. He died on July 2, 2017, one week after the correct diagnosis was finally made.

The Smith family filed a civil complaint in April 2021 against Dr. Henson, Mercy Hospital, and its parent system, Northern Light Health. The case went to trial in January 2023. Berman and Simmons attorneys Susan Faunce and Jodi Nofsinger argued that Dr. Henson had every piece of clinical information needed to diagnose Lyme disease at the first visit: the rash pattern, the geographic exposure, and the constellation of systemic symptoms. The failure to test or treat, they argued, left the infection unchecked long enough for it to reach Smith's heart.

On February 1, 2023, after roughly three and a half hours of deliberation, the jury voted 7-2 and returned a verdict of $6.5 million, broken down as $1.5 million for conscious pain and suffering, $2 million in economic damages, and $3 million for loss of life. Under the Maine law in effect at the time of Smith's death, loss-of-life damages were capped at $500,000, which brought the total judgment to approximately $4 million. The case was presided over by Justice John O'Neil Jr. in Cumberland County Superior Court.

The hospital appealed. In July 2025, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court vacated the $2 million economic-damages award, holding that the Smiths had shown no pecuniary injury because there was no evidence their son would have supported them financially. That ruling left the remaining award at roughly $2 million (the $1.5 million pain-and-suffering award plus the $500,000 capped loss-of-life award). The liability finding against Dr. Henson and the hospital was not disturbed.