Berks County Jury Awards $9.6 Million to Girl Whose Cervical Cancer Was Diagnosed Two Years Late
After trial: Reading Hospital's 40 percent share was reported as $3.8 million; the plaintiff had settled with the physician and clinic on undisclosed terms. We found no report of an appeal and could not confirm payment.
Won by Ross Feller Casey.
A Berks County jury awarded $9.6 million in December 2019 to a 15-year-old girl whose cervical cancer, first signaled by persistent bleeding that began when she was 11, was not diagnosed until 2016. The jury put 50 percent of fault on a physician, 40 percent on Reading Hospital and 10 percent on Farias Medical Clinic. The award includes about $4.5 million for future medical expenses.
What happened
A Berks County Court of Common Pleas jury in Reading returned a $9.6 million verdict in December 2019 for a 15-year-old girl, identified only as L.M. in court papers, whose cervical cancer went undiagnosed for about two years. Her lawyer said the award might be among the largest medical malpractice verdicts in county history.
L.M. had just turned 11 when, in 2014, she began having persistent, continuous vaginal bleeding. She was seen by her primary care providers and, in 2015, made repeat emergency room visits with the same complaint, most significantly at Reading Hospital. According to the plaintiff's pretrial memorandum, the bleeding was dismissed as menstrual bleeding and providers did not test for other possible causes. The cancer was not diagnosed until 2016.
The plaintiff's pretrial memorandum framed the case around that gap. It described a significant delay in diagnosis running from her first complaint of bleeding to her primary care providers in 2014, and it pointed to the 2015 emergency room visits as further chances to find the cancer that were missed. The theory at trial was not a single bad decision but a series of providers, over roughly two years, treating the same symptom in a young child as routine.
By then it had advanced. L.M. went through multiple surgeries along with extensive chemotherapy and radiation. The treatment did not stop the disease. Her lawyer told the jury the disease is now terminal and said that had it been diagnosed earlier, she would have had a significant chance of surviving.
The trial ran eight days before Judge Madelyn S. Fudeman, and the jury deliberated over two days. Joshua Van Naarden of Ross Feller Casey in Philadelphia represented L.M. Reading Hospital, part of Tower Health, disputed the claims. Several providers were named in the suit, which was filed on January 3, 2018.
The jury found three defendants causally negligent and apportioned fault 50 percent to the treating physician, Dr. Emmanuella Cherisme-Theophile, 40 percent to Reading Hospital and 10 percent to Farias Medical Clinic. About $4.5 million of the $9.6 million total was for future medical expenses. Reading Hospital's 40 percent share came to $3.8 million. The verdict sheet put the largest share of fault on the individual physician rather than the hospital, but the jury still found that the hospital's own care was a cause of the delay.
L.M. had settled with the physician and the clinic, on terms that were not disclosed. We found no report of a post-trial motion or appeal.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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