The Jury Put $250,000 on What He Suffered Before He Died and $5.25 Million on What His Family Lost Afterwards.
After trial: The verdict stands at $5,500,000 and no Iowa appellate opinion exists for this case anywhere in the 2019 to 2026 archive, so no appeal is recorded. Trial was November 22, 2021 in the Iowa District Court for Scott County, No. LACE130184, Judge Stuart P. Werling. The award divides as $250,000 for the decedent's pre-death pain and suffering, $2,250,000 for spousal loss of consortium and three separate $1,000,000 awards for parental loss of consortium; every one of the derivative awards arises from the single death, which is why this is recorded as an individual-scope result. One open point of precision: the date of the alleged negligence was not established, and it determines which sentence about the cap is strictly correct. If it predates July 1, 2017, Iowa Code § 147.136A did not exist and no cap applied. If it falls between July 1, 2017 and February 15, 2023, the $250,000 cap was displaced because the case involved death, and the pre-2023 exception carried no ceiling. The full $5,500,000 stands either way, which is why the entry is published, but the date should be confirmed before the cap history is described more tightly than this. For an occurrence on or after February 16, 2023 the same award would be capped at $1,000,000, since no Iowa Code § 135B.1 hospital was a named defendant and the $2,000,000 tier would not apply.
Won by RSH Legal.
Ross Hall died after what his family alleged was negligent cardiology care. The jury awarded $5,500,000, and the allocation is the striking part: only $250,000 for his own pain and suffering before death, and the remaining $5.25 million to his widow and three children for what they lost.
What happened
Ross Hall died. His family's case was that his cardiologist, Jon A. Robken, was negligent in the care and treatment that led to it. Robken denied the allegations.
The trial took place in Scott County before Judge Stuart P. Werling in November 2021. The jury found for the family and awarded $5,500,000.
How it divided that sum is worth looking at, because it is the opposite of the usual shape. Only $250,000 was allocated to Ross Hall's own pain and suffering before his death. The remaining $5,250,000 went to the people left behind: $2,250,000 to his widow for loss of spousal consortium, and $1,000,000 each to three children for loss of parental consortium.
Almost the entire award is non-economic. That is precisely the kind of verdict Iowa's legislature has since moved against, and the timing here is the whole story.
Iowa had no medical-malpractice damages cap at all until July 1, 2017. From that date until February 15, 2023 a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages existed but was displaced whenever the case involved death or substantial injury, and the displacement had no ceiling of its own. A death case in that window was therefore uncapped. For a cause of action accruing on or after February 16, 2023, House File 161 replaced the open-ended exception with a hard limit: $1,000,000, or $2,000,000 where a licensed hospital is a defendant.
No hospital was a defendant here. An identical verdict on identical facts, if the negligence happened today, would be cut to $1,000,000.
The family was represented by Tim Semelroth, Pressley Henningsen and Benjamin Long of RSH Legal in Cedar Rapids, with Farl Greene of Ball, Kirk and Holm and Nile Hicks.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Iowa State Bar Association Civil Jury Verdicts reporter, entry for Scott County No. LACE130184: the venue, Judge Stuart P. Werling, the November 22, 2021 trial date, the $5,500,000 award with its itemization into pre-death pain and suffering and the spousal and parental consortium components, the defendants and their denial, and the plaintiff's counsel line reading 'Farl Green, Tim Semelroth, Pressley Henningsen, Benjamin Long | Nile Hicks'
- 2.Iowa Code § 147.136A, the medical-malpractice non-economic damages cap, its death and substantial-injury exception, and the House File 161 limits applying to causes accruing on or after February 16, 2023
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