$900,000.00 Settlement in Delayed Diagnosis of Cancer/Wrongful Death Case
Confidential Settlement 2021
The case was brought initially by the patient and then by her family after her death. The deceased patient was a 61 year old woman with a 55+ pack year smoking history who had quit smoking ten years before when she became a patient of the Defendant Doctor and Nurse Practitioner. The patient had an extensive family history of cancer having lost both parents and her siblings to cancer. At an annual physical exam, the Nurse Practitioner failed to order a low dose CT scan of the patient’s lung to detect potential cancerous lesions despite the US Preventative Services Task Force recommending that asymptomatic adults aged 55 to 80 with a 30+ pack year history who either still smoked or had quit smoking within the previous 15 years undergo annual screening for lung cancer using low dose CT scan. After treating with the Defendant Doctor and Nurse Practitioner for two years the patient was finally diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer but unfortunately because of the delay in the diagnosis she was already at stage 4 with metastasis to other parts of her body. The patient died from her lung cancer less than a year after she was diagnosed.
At deposition, the Defendants each agreed that they were negligent in their treatment of the patient. Plaintiffs’ experts were prepared to testify that the Defendants violated the standards of care including (but not limited to) by failing to obtain a low dose CT scan annually starting at the first visit which more likely than not would have detected the patient’s non-small cell lung cancer at an earlier stage when it would have been treatable and that more likely than not the patient would not have died.
The case was mediated and a $900,000.00 confidential settlement was reached with the proceeds going to benefit the patient’s surviving children.