Two Illinois juries recently awarded huge verdicts to injured patients in unrelated malpractice cases.
A 59-year-old woman from Springfield, Ill., won $548,200 in her lawsuit against a general surgeon, according to the State Journal-Register newspaper. During a laparoscopic procedure in 2002 to remove a mass below her right kidney, the surgeon inadvertently removed a 6 cm section of the woman’s ureter.
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The woman complained that she was in pain, but the surgeon told her to take more painkillers, she told the newspaper. Eventually, she learned she had an abdominal infection that ultimately led another doctor to re-move her right kidney. That procedure left her with residual nerve damage that causes chronic pain.
The woman blamed the surgeon’s original mistake for those complications and noted that he never apologized for her ordeal, the newspaper reported. After a five-day trial a Sangamon County Circuit Court, a jury awarded the woman $59,200 for medical bills, $154,000 for past and future lost earnings, and $335,000 for noneconomic damages, including $150,000 for pain and suffering.
