$6.8 Million Hospital Settlement After a Stillbirth at 31 Weeks and the Hysterectomy That Followed
After trial: The $6.8 million is the hospital's share only; the claims against Dr. Abdelhak and his practice were still pending as of July 2025 and we found no reported resolution. The hospital agreed to pay on July 1, 2025 and described the terms as confidential; we did not independently confirm the payment date. No appeal is possible from a settlement, and the March 2025 Appellate Division ruling was interlocutory.
Won by Lomurro Munson LLC.
Kristen Dondero was 31 weeks pregnant and under the care of a maternal-fetal specialist when Hackensack University Medical Center sent her home on September 6, 2018 with decreased fetal movement and early labor symptoms. She returned two days later and learned her son had died in utero; the delivery that followed tore her uterus and ended in an emergency hysterectomy, blood transfusions, and further surgery under an induced coma. After five years of litigation marked by the hospital's sworn denials that any internal review of her care existed, and an Appellate Division ruling that those denials could support a fraudulent concealment claim, HMH Hospitals Corp. agreed on July 1, 2025 to pay Kristen and Andrew Dondero $6.8 million. The case against the obstetrician and his practice continued.
What happened
Kristen Dondero learned she was pregnant in February 2018, two weeks after doctors found an ovarian cyst. The pregnancy was flagged as high risk. In April she was treated at Hackensack University Medical Center for bleeding from a partial placenta previa, and on August 9, 2018 she came under the care of Dr. Yaakov Abdelhak, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist with Maternal Resources Obstetrics, who sent her to the hospital to have the cyst drained.
On September 6, 2018, at 31 weeks, she went to Hackensack University Medical Center with early labor symptoms and decreased fetal movement. She was put on a fetal monitor and examined by Dr. Emily Howell and Dr. Abdelhak, then discharged with preterm labor precautions and told to follow up with Dr. Abdelhak. Two days later she came back with abdominal pain and less movement. The monitor found no heartbeat, and an ultrasound confirmed the baby had died.
Labor was induced. According to the Appellate Division's account of the record, Dr. Abdelhak attempted a vaginal delivery, found the baby in an arm presentation, and repositioned him internally to complete it. Kristen Dondero then hemorrhaged. Surgeons could not stop the bleeding and performed a hysterectomy. She received transfusions, underwent additional surgeries while in an induced coma, and spent days in hemorrhagic shock before being discharged on September 24, 2018. She was hospitalized again that October and in April 2019, and her later attempts to preserve eggs for surrogacy failed.
She and her husband Andrew filed suit in Bergen County on June 17, 2020 against Dr. Abdelhak, his practice, HMH Hospitals Corp. (which operates the medical center), the hospital's physician group, and Dr. Howell. Jonathan H. Lomurro of Lomurro Munson represented Kristen Dondero; Christian LoPiano represented her husband.
The case then turned into a fight over what the hospital was hiding. In sworn discovery responses in 2021 and 2022, hospital witnesses certified that no review, investigation, or report of Kristen Dondero's care existed. The trial court struck the hospital defendants' pleadings without prejudice in May 2022 for failing to comply with discovery. In the fall of 2022 the hospital's own lawyer confirmed that a quality review and a morbidity-and-mortality review had in fact been conducted, and the hospital amended its answers. Plaintiffs were allowed to add a fraudulent concealment count in April 2023. Judge David V. Nasta appointed a special discovery master, retired judge Rachelle Harz.
When the trial court quashed subpoenas to a defense lawyer and refused to let the Donderos file a second amended complaint, they took an interlocutory appeal with Jonathan Lomurro and Christina Vassiliou Harvey on the briefs. On March 13, 2025 the Appellate Division upheld the protective order for the lawyer but reversed on the complaint, holding that the hospital's failure to produce discovery, including denying that the material existed, could support fraudulent concealment and conspiracy claims against the hospital defendants.
Mediation with retired judge Robert Polifroni produced a tentative resolution on June 17, 2025, and on July 1 HMH Hospitals Corp. agreed to pay $6.8 million to Kristen and Andrew Dondero. The concealment claims were withdrawn as part of the resolution. Lomurro told the New Jersey Law Journal that access to information was the hardest part of the case, and that it was still unclear who actually delivered the child because Dr. Abdelhak and another doctor each said the other had. Brian Steller of Connell Foley, for the hospital, called the settlement confidential and declined comment.
The settlement resolved only the hospital's exposure. The suit against Dr. Abdelhak and Maternal Resources Obstetrics was still proceeding when the settlement was reported.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.New Jersey Law Journal, July 11, 2025: HMH Hospitals Corp. agreed July 1, 2025 to pay Kristen and Andrew Dondero $6.8 million; Jonathan H. Lomurro of Lomurro Law represented Kristen Dondero; suit against Dr. Abdelhak still pending; discovery history, special master, mediation, defense counsel comment
- 2.N.J. Superior Court, Appellate Division, Dondero v. Abdelhak, A-3524-23, decided March 13, 2025: counsel of record (Jonathan H. Lomurro and Christina Vassiliou Harvey for Kristen Dondero), Bergen County docket L-3527-20, medical facts of the September 2018 admissions, delivery, hemorrhage and hysterectomy, the discovery certifications, and the ruling on the fraudulent concealment count
- 3.Justia: same Appellate Division opinion, unpublished, March 13, 2025
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