Second Wayne County Jury Awards $2.77 Million to Child Patient Falsely Diagnosed With Epilepsy
Won by McKeen & Associates, PC.
A Wayne County jury awarded $2.77 million in October 2019 to Claire Linzell after finding that pediatric neurologist Dr. Yasser Awaad had misdiagnosed her with epilepsy as a young child when she actually had an autism spectrum disorder, subjecting her to years of anti-seizure medication she did not need.
What happened
Dr. Yasser Awaad worked as a pediatric neurologist at Oakwood Healthcare in the Detroit area for roughly eight years, during which time he generated epilepsy diagnoses in children by misreading EEG brain wave tests. According to evidence presented at multiple trials, he reported abnormal brain activity that was not present, then prescribed anti-seizure medications to children who had no seizure disorder. His compensation included performance bonuses tied to billing targets.
Claire Linzell came to Awaad as a young child. Her parents sought an evaluation for repetitive behaviors and attention difficulties. Awaad conducted EEG testing, reported abnormal findings, and diagnosed epilepsy. She was placed on anti-seizure and antidepressant medications. The treatment continued for years. When another physician eventually reviewed her case, the conclusion was different: Claire had an autism spectrum disorder. The epilepsy treatment had addressed a condition she did not have.
By the time the case went to trial, McKeen and Associates, PC was representing approximately 267 former Awaad patients in pending civil claims across the same pattern of alleged misdiagnosis. Brian J. McKeen, who led the plaintiff litigation, told reporters that Awaad had enriched himself "through a scheme of misdiagnosing epilepsy" in children.
The Linzell trial followed closely behind the firm's first courtroom victory in the Awaad litigation. A separate Wayne County jury had awarded $3 million to plaintiff Mariah Martinez in June 2019 in a parallel case against the same defendants. The Linzell jury returned its verdict on October 29, 2019, finding that Awaad had breached the applicable standard of care and that Oakwood had acted negligently in credentialing and supervising him. The total award was $2.77 million. Beaumont Health, which had acquired Oakwood before either verdict was entered, announced it disagreed with the outcome and would appeal. Michigan's statutory cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases applied, leaving the net recovery subject to judicial reduction.
In May 2020, the Michigan Board of Medicine Disciplinary Subcommittee unanimously accepted a settlement under which Awaad permanently surrendered his Michigan medical license and paid a $5,000 fine. Approximately 270 additional civil cases from former patients remained pending at that time.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.CBS Detroit: $2.8M verdict in 2nd trial over bogus epilepsy, Linzell v. Awaad·Archived copy
- 2.WXYZ ABC7: Jury awards $2.77M in 2nd case against doctor accused of false epilepsy diagnoses·Archived copy
- 3.WXYZ ABC7: Doctor accused of falsely diagnosing hundreds of kids with epilepsy loses medical license·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from McKeen & Associates, PC
All McKeen & Associates, PC proven verdicts →An Oakland County jury awarded the Tran family $130,571,897 in 2018 after finding that Beaumont Hospital technicians failed to call a code blue or provide chest compressions when a two-month-old infant suffered a breath-hold spell during a renal scan, leaving him with permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy.
A Wayne County jury found Henry Ford Hospital negligent for a delay of over two hours in executing an ordered emergency C-section, awarding $120.9 million to a Detroit mother and her son, who was left with severe cerebral palsy and requires full-time care.
In April 2023 a Wayne County jury awarded $96 million to the widow and mother of Jude and Zachary Attianese, a New Jersey father and son killed when a Challenger Motor Freight tractor-trailer rear-ended their car in an I-75 construction zone in 2018. The company had acknowledged responsibility, so the trial addressed damages. The driver was taking medications for Parkinson's disease, and the company had known of his diagnosis since 2015.
A Wayne County, Michigan jury awarded roughly $55.5 million, among the largest medical malpractice verdicts in the state at the time, against Henry Ford Health System after an emergency room physician sent home a child in respiratory distress who suffered a respiratory arrest the next morning and permanent brain damage. The trial court reduced the gross award to present value and applied Michigan's statutory cap on noneconomic damages, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in 2005.
Related medical malpractice verdicts
A Utah judge entered a $951 million default judgment against Steward Health Care after newly trained nurses, an excessive Pitocin drip, and a delayed C-section at Jordan Valley Medical Center left a newborn permanently brain damaged.
A Gainesville jury awarded $900 million, including $700 million in punitive damages, to stroke survivor Joseph Webb over neglect at the University Place Care and Rehabilitation Center, in a Wilkes & McHugh case tried against defaulted Trans Healthcare entities with no defense present, but Florida's First District Court of Appeal reversed the judgment in 2013 because the trial court had refused to let a defense lawyer appear, and the money was never collected; the estate's claim was later resolved for a small share of a multi-estate bankruptcy settlement.
A Clark County jury ordered Health Plan of Nevada and Sierra Health Services to pay $524 million after finding the UnitedHealth Group subsidiaries negligently credentialed a gastroenterologist whose unsafe injection practices at his Las Vegas endoscopy clinics caused the largest medically caused hepatitis C outbreak in American history.
Georgia Hayes, a Kansas City area ovarian cancer patient, sued pharmacist Robert Courtney after learning he had diluted the chemotherapy drugs used in her treatment. A Jackson County jury found Courtney liable and awarded Hayes $225,571,439 in compensatory damages and $2 billion in punitive damages, the first of hundreds of similar suits against Courtney to reach trial. The trial judge later found the award excessive and cut it by remittitur to $330,071,439, and that reduced judgment stood. Hayes herself and the case reporter covering the verdict both said she was unlikely to ever collect a significant portion of it.