CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The family of a multiple sclerosis patient who died when doctors and nurses at Saint Francis Hospital allegedly misinterpreted signs that his bowel was punctured agreed to an undisclosed settlement in a lawsuit against the hospital.
After a nearly two-week trial, the family of Clarence Leroy Dunnavant agreed to settle the case Wednesday after Kanawha County Circuit Judge James C. Stucky granted a motion that hamstrung the jury's ability to award punitive damages, according to a statement from the family.
The decision to settle, according to the statement, became a "pure business decision."
For cases involving medical malpractice, state law caps non-economic damage awards, such as pain and suffering, disability and disfigurement, at $500,000. Punitive damages are a separate category of damages that a jury can award if it finds that the wrongdoer has acted in a way that is considered contemptible to society.
Dunnavant family lawyer Michael J. Del Giudice was not available for comment Thursday.
"It is our strong opinion that this was not a frivolous lawsuit," according to the family's statement. "And the facts were sufficient to have allowed the jury to consider punitive damages.
"However, with WV tort reform legislation, the health-care industry is protected like no other industry in the state," the statement continued. " Thus, the health-care industry basically operates without full regard for providing high-quality standards of patient care, knowing that their potential economic losses are limited no matter what levels of care and competence are provided."
In August 2007, Dunnavant, whose multiple sclerosis left him paralyzed from the chest down, checked into Saint Francis with a urinary tract infection. After treatment, doctors told him he could leave within 24-hours.
Family members noticed as the day went on that Dunnavant's abdomen was continuing to swell with air. At one point, it had swollen to the size of a basketball.
Nurses reportedly misread Dunnavant's symptoms to his on-call doctor, Justin Bailey, which made the doctor believe that Dunnavant was suffering from a less-serious fecal impaction.
Another doctor, Paula Taylor, allegedly misread an X-ray scan that Bailey had ordered. No doctors saw Dunnavant until about two hours before his death, despite pleas from family members.
"Our hope is that our father's death and the circumstances surrounding it will be used as a learning experience so other patients and families will not have to live through what happened to us," according to the Dunnavant family statement. "If the hospital and doctors learned from this experience and make positive changes, we are satisfied."
Reach Zac Taylor at Zachary.Tay...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5189.