$10 Million Verdict After Woman Died in Psychiatric Unit That Lacked the Medical Care She Needed
Won by Rittgers & Rittgers.
A Cincinnati jury awarded $10 million on May 1, 2026, after finding that TriHealth's Good Samaritan Hospital placed 69-year-old Terri Price in a psychiatric unit instead of a medical unit, leaving her without the nursing care and IV antibiotics needed to treat her advancing sepsis.
What happened
On March 22, 2020, Terri Price arrived at University of Cincinnati Medical Center with a documented infection and a diagnosis that included a neurocognitive disorder. Because no medical bed was available at UC, staff transferred her to Good Samaritan Hospital, a TriHealth facility in Cincinnati's Clifton neighborhood.
At Good Samaritan, a physician admitted Price to the psychiatric unit without conducting a physical examination or reviewing the records that had followed her from UC. Good Samaritan's own policy prohibited placing medically ill patients in psychiatric units until their underlying medical conditions were stabilized. Price's records showed she was already positive for delirium when she arrived.
Once inside the psychiatric unit, Price received no care from registered nurses and was denied IV antibiotics. Over the days that followed, signs of worsening sepsis went unaddressed. On March 29, 2020, she died. The cause of death was bowel impaction complicated by advancing sepsis, a progression her family's attorneys argued would have been interrupted by standard medical nursing care.
Charles M. Rittgers of Rittgers and Rittgers, along with co-counsel Matt Nakajima, represented Price's family through roughly five years of litigation. At trial, they presented the argument that the hospital's decision to place Price in a psychiatric unit directly deprived her of the medical interventions that could have saved her life.
On May 1, 2026, the Hamilton County jury returned a $10 million verdict. TriHealth said it was 'deeply disappointed' by the outcome and indicated it was considering an appeal. The hospital's attorneys argued the award was disproportionate, claiming it was 'only tied to the inflated value of a 70-year-old unhealthy woman.' The trial judge had not yet ruled on the hospital's post-trial motion as of the date of reporting. Rittgers responded to TriHealth's public statement by saying: 'I don't think TriHealth has learned anything as a result of this verdict and preventable loss of human life.'
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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