$4.53 Million Wrongful Death Judgment Against OSU Wexner Medical Center Over High-Dose Opioid Discharge
After trial: Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center appealed, and the Tenth District Court of Appeals affirmed the liability and damages judgments on October 1, 2026. We could not confirm whether further review by the Ohio Supreme Court has been sought or whether the judgment has been paid.
Won by Francis E. Sweeney, Jr. Esq. LLC (co-counsel), Other counsel and The Becker Law Firm.
Brooks Davison, a husband and father of three who had kept six years of sobriety on Suboxone, died within about two days of leaving Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center after spinal fusion surgery. The Court of Claims found the hospital breached the standard of care by discharging him on a very high oxycodone dose plus diazepam, and awarded his widow, as administrator of his estate, $4,531,700.50. The Tenth District affirmed on October 1, 2026.
What happened
Brooks Davison had been in recovery from opioid addiction for six years. A back problem had led doctors to prescribe him opioids in his twenties, and he became dependent. With his family's help he entered treatment, took Suboxone daily under his primary care physician, and never failed a drug screen. He put off spinal surgery for a long time because he feared a relapse.
On February 1, 2016, Davison had a spinal fusion at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He was given Suboxone after surgery, then declined it from February 2 on, saying he and his physician had agreed he would stay off it while hospitalized. The hospital's acute pain service responded to his pain by raising his oxycodone to 30 to 45 milligrams every three hours. Early on February 5, his blood oxygen fell to 80 percent and he reported shortness of breath and chest pain. The hospital discharged him that evening anyway, with prescriptions for the same oxycodone dose and for diazepam, a benzodiazepine that can sharply depress breathing when combined with an opioid. No one contacted his Suboxone prescriber to arrange follow-up sooner than a visit set for February 17.
Davison's wife, Dawn, helped him track each dose because he wanted to stay accountable. He took 45 milligrams of oxycodone around 11:00 p.m. on February 6 and went to sleep. When Dawn woke around 6 a.m. on February 7, he had stopped breathing. The autopsy listed multiple drug intoxication, including oxycodone. The county coroner who investigated called the prescribed amount the highest he had seen in a prescription-opioid overdose.
Dawn Davison, as administrator of his estate, sued in the Court of Claims of Ohio in 2018. The court dismissed a separate medical negligence claim as untimely and tried the wrongful death claim to the bench over six days. Her experts, an anesthesiologist and an addiction psychiatrist, testified that the dosing and the benzodiazepine together caused the death. The hospital argued that Davison took more than prescribed, citing his post-mortem blood level and a pill count. On April 5, 2023, the court found a breach of the standard of care and proximate cause, noting that the hospital's own expert conceded that studies of living patients and blood drawn after death could affect his conclusions.
After a separate damages trial, the court entered judgment of $4,531,700.50 plus post-judgment interest on December 23, 2024, and denied the hospital's motion for a new trial on May 2, 2025. Ohio State appealed. The hospital did not contest the finding that it breached the standard of care, and argued only about causation and the admission of rebuttal expert testimony. The Becker Law Firm and Romney B. Cullers, with Francis E. Sweeney Jr., represented Dawn Davison on appeal, and Paul W. Flowers argued for her. The Tenth District, in an opinion by Judge Mentel, affirmed every judgment on October 1, 2026.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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