Cook County Jury Awards $15.55 Million After Teacher Dies From Undiagnosed Placenta Condition in Childbirth
After trial: University of Chicago Medicine said it was reviewing its options after the verdict. We found no appellate opinion or post-trial reduction, and could not confirm payment.
Won by Clifford Law Offices.
Karen Lopez, a 33-year-old teacher, died in February 2008 after hemorrhaging during a cesarean delivery. Her husband sued over a placenta condition that was not diagnosed beforehand or properly managed. In November 2013 a Cook County jury found University of Chicago Hospital and two physicians liable and awarded $15.55 million. MacNeal Hospital was found not liable.
What happened
Karen Lopez, a 33-year-old tenured teacher at Morton East High School, went into pre-term labor at 34 weeks and was admitted to MacNeal Hospital on February 2, 2008. During her cesarean delivery she began to hemorrhage severely. She fell into a coma and died on February 8, 2008. Her second child was born alive. Her older son was 2 years old.
Her husband, Carlos Lopez, sued on behalf of her estate in the Circuit Court of Cook County. The case named University of Chicago Hospital, maternal-fetal medicine specialist Dr. Mahmoud Ismail, and obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Mukundini Mehta, along with the company that operates MacNeal Hospital. Keith Hebeisen and Sarah King of Clifford Law Offices represented the estate.
The estate's theory was that Karen Lopez had placenta percreta, a condition in which the placenta grows into and through the wall of the uterus and makes delivery bleeding extremely dangerous. News coverage described it as placenta accreta, the broader category. The estate argued that Dr. Ismail misread an ultrasound taken on December 27, 2007, so the condition was never diagnosed before delivery, and that Dr. Mehta missed warning signs during the surgery itself. The medical record described severe blood loss and loss of blood flow to her limbs before her death.
The trial ran about two weeks before Judge James Flannery. The estate called experts in anesthesiology, fetal medicine, obstetrics and forensic pathology, and an economist. The defense called its own ultrasound and fetal medicine experts.
The jury of four men and eight women deliberated for under six hours and returned its verdict on November 22, 2013. It found University of Chicago Hospital, Dr. Ismail and Dr. Mehta liable. It found MacNeal Hospital not liable, answering in a special interrogatory that Karen Lopez should have known Dr. Mehta was not a hospital employee.
The total was $15.55 million, made up of $12 million for pecuniary loss, $1.8 million for loss of normal life, $1 million for pain and suffering and $750,000 for disfigurement. News coverage called it the third-highest wrongful death medical malpractice verdict in Cook County history. University of Chicago Medicine said it respectfully disagreed with the decision and was reviewing its options.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.VerdictSearch, 'Failure to diagnose placenta percreta led to death: spouse', Lopez v. University of Chicago Hospital et al., Nov. 2013
- 2.ABC7 Chicago, 'Man wins $15.5M after wife's childbirth death', Nov. 2013·Archived copy
- 3.Insurance Journal, '$15 Million Awarded in Illinois Childbirth Death Lawsuit', Nov. 25, 2013·Archived copy
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