Twice-Missed Lung Infiltrate Leads to $10.5 Million Settlement Over New Jersey Lawyer's Death

In January 2019, Brian Coven went to Summit Medical Group complaining of pneumonia symptoms. Doctors ordered a chest X-ray, which was read by radiologist Erika Berman. Berman did not flag an infiltrate on the film, an opacity in lung tissue that can be an early sign of cancer, according to the malpractice suit Coven's estate later filed in Essex County Superior Court.

About two months later, Coven saw pulmonologist Alison Kole for an unrelated sleep apnea consultation. Reviewing the same January X-ray, Kole did spot the infiltrate. She mentioned it in a multipage letter to Coven's primary care physician, Peter Colucio, but the suit alleges she buried the finding in the body of the letter rather than including it in her closing summary. Colucio later testified at his deposition that he read the entire letter but missed the reference, while acknowledging that a lung infiltrate can indicate cancer and that the standard of care required him to order a follow-up scan once he had the information.

In February 2020, Coven returned to Summit Medical Group, again with pneumonia symptoms, and was examined by urgent care physician Lisa Campanella-Coppo. She ordered a second chest X-ray, again read by Berman, who this time identified the infiltrate, documented it in her report, and recommended follow-up imaging. Campanella-Coppo did not understand that an infiltrate could signal cancer, the suit alleges, and disregarded Berman's recommendation. She never told Coven the finding needed further workup and never passed it along to Colucio.

Coven was not diagnosed with lung cancer until later, after he began losing weight for no apparent reason. A cancer expert retained by his estate concluded that if the infiltrate had been pursued when it first appeared in January 2019, Coven would have had an 85 to 90 percent chance of survival. He died of the cancer in 2024 at age 68, a transactional lawyer who had spent his whole career at Sills Cummis & Gross and had planned to keep working into his 70s.

His estate sued Summit Medical Group along with Berman, Kole, Colucio and Campanella-Coppo, and the defendants appeared through four different defense firms. David Mazie of Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman represented the estate. Recovering damages was complicated by a 1990 New Jersey Supreme Court decision, Scafidi v. Seiler, which requires that in cases with independent contributing causes of death, any damages be apportioned to reflect the chance the patient would have died regardless of a defendant's negligence. That doctrine narrowed what the estate could recover even if every allegation in the suit were proven.

The case ended in a settlement. Summit Medical Group agreed to pay $10.5 million on behalf of the four physicians named in the suit. None of the defense lawyers responded to a reporter's calls about the case.