Cook County Jury Returns $4.11 Million Verdict Against Nursing Home That Stopped a Resident's Blood Thinner

Dolores Trendel was 85 when she was admitted to Assisi at Clare Oaks, a nursing home in Bartlett, Illinois, on February 23, 2011, for rehabilitation after a fracture. She also had atrial fibrillation, a heart rhythm condition that raises the risk of blood clots and stroke, and for years she had taken the blood thinner Coumadin to manage it. Her dosage at Clare Oaks was supervised by the facility's medical director, Dr. Percival Bigol.

On March 16, 2011, a Clare Oaks nurse wrote on a lab report and in a progress note that Dr. Bigol had ordered the Coumadin stopped. Dr. Bigol disputed giving that order. The nurse never entered it in the physician orders section of the chart, where a physician would have seen and signed it, and the facility's own safeguards, including telephone-order read-backs, Coumadin flow sheets and daily audits, did not catch the gap. Mrs. Trendel received no Coumadin for the next 14 days. On March 30, 2011, she had a stroke. Reporting on the trial described right-side weakness and a diminished quality of life afterward. She died on March 15, 2015.

Her children, Susan Grauer and Thomas Trendel, sued as coexecutors of her estate in the Circuit Court of Cook County (No. 13 L 2472). They brought claims under the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act, for negligence and for wrongful death against Clare Oaks, its administrator, and Dr. Bigol. Steven M. Levin represented the family, and the appellate opinion lists him with Susan L. Novosad, Margaret P. Battersby Black, Daniel D. Goldfaden and Michael W. Rathsack as the estate's counsel. At trial before Judge Thomas V. Lyons II, which began in July 2017, the estate's experts testified that the missed doses were the likely cause of the stroke and that the stroke changed how and when Mrs. Trendel died. According to a pretrial motion described in the appellate opinion, Clare Oaks' own nursing expert agreed in her discovery deposition that the staff failed to document and carry out the order properly. The defense argued that Mrs. Trendel's heart condition carried a stroke risk regardless of Coumadin, and the facility said it was proud of its care.

On July 17, 2017, the jury found against Clare Oaks and assessed damages of $4,111,477.66. Of that, $250,000 went to her children for the loss of her society under the Wrongful Death Act, and the remaining $3,861,477.66 covered what Mrs. Trendel herself suffered before her death. The jury found for Dr. Bigol and for the administrator.

After the verdict, the trial court denied Clare Oaks a new trial and, under section 3-602 of the Nursing Home Care Act, ordered it to pay the estate's attorney fees and costs. On August 14, 2019, the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, affirmed the verdict and the costs award. It sent the fee award back for redetermination because part of it had been calculated on the wrongful death portion of the verdict, which the statute does not cover.