$120 Million Verdict Against Westchester Medical Center for Missed Stroke

In the early hours of November 27, 2018, 41-year-old William Lee collapsed at his home in Elmsford, New York. His wife found him convulsing and called 911. Paramedics suspected a stroke and rushed him to Westchester Medical Center, a designated stroke center. Within roughly half an hour of his arrival, staff performed a CT scan to check for a blockage in the vessels feeding his brain.

No board-certified radiologist was on site to read the images. Instead, the scan was interpreted by on-call residents, a junior neurology resident and a radiology resident, who missed the signs of a developing stroke. The films in fact showed an occlusion of the basilar artery, one of the principal vessels supplying the brainstem. Because the blockage went unrecognized, the treatment that could have restored blood flow was not started.

More than three hours passed before an attending neuroradiologist reviewed the same images, identified the basilar artery clot, and confirmed the emergency. Only then did doctors perform a thrombectomy to remove the clot, a procedure that itself took only minutes. By that point the harm was done. The prolonged loss of blood flow left Mr. Lee with permanent brain damage affecting his memory, judgment, and ability to live independently. He now requires lifelong care in a residential brain-injury facility.

At trial in Westchester County, Mr. Lee and his wife were represented by Gair Gair Conason, with Ben B. Rubinowitz serving as lead trial counsel alongside Jeffrey B. Bloom and Richard M. Steigman. Over a weeks-long trial before Justice Paul I. Marx, the firm argued that the hospital had departed from the accepted standard of care by entrusting a time-critical stroke diagnosis to inexperienced residents and by allowing hours to pass before the clot was found and treated.

Central to the case was the principle that "time is brain," the medical understanding that brain cells die by the minute when an artery is blocked. The plaintiff's lawyers worked to show the jury that it was the multi-hour delay, and not the stroke alone, that caused the catastrophic and irreversible injury, and that prompt recognition and treatment would have changed the outcome.

On November 30, 2023, after a day of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of $120 million for Mr. Lee and his wife, compensating him for future medical needs, past and future pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life, and his wife for the loss of his services and companionship. It was widely reported as the largest medical-malpractice award in Westchester County history and the top New York verdict of 2023. Westchester Medical Center declined to comment.