Jury sides with hospital in wrongful death lawsuit

In a 10-2 vote, a Greene County jury has rejected a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the survivors of a 73-year-old Springfield woman who died at a CoxHealth hospital nearly a decade ago from what her family called a preventable heart attack.

The jury deliberated for slightly under three hours at the conclusion of a six-day trial in late April, siding with the defendant in a suit brought by the family of Alma Jean Thompson.

The plaintiffs sought at least $1 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. No counteroffer was made.

According to the suit and attorneys for both parties, Thompson was treated at the CoxHealth emergency department on Sept. 7, 2015, with complaints of shortness of breath that had lasted for weeks.

She received a single unit blood transfusion “for unknown reasons,” the complaint alleges, and then followed up with her cardiologist two days later at a previously scheduled appointment. Thompson was sent home and died that same day at her kitchen table.

Thompson was first referred to the cardiologist one month earlier, said plaintiff’s counsel Nichelle Oxley, after an abnormal but low-risk stress test and a diagnosis in April 2015 of anemia and stroke. She wound up in the CoxHealth ER on Aug. 20, where she was also provided with a single unit blood transfusion and an EGD before discharge.

The emergency room physician “did not consult with a cardiologist and did not consult with any of the providers in the hospital who had just treated this patient a mere two weeks earlier,” Oxley said.

At the cardiologist’s visit, despite “showing clear signs and symptoms of a cardiac emergency,” the doctor sent her home with instructions to follow up with her primary care provider and to return to see him in six months.

Both the emergency room physician and the cardiologist were initially named as defendants but dismissed on the eve of the trial. The plaintiffs consisted of the decedent’s two adult sons and her husband, who died before the trial and thus removed from the case.

Defense attorney Debra Gullet-Johnson noted that the absence of an autopsy supported the health care system’s assertion that the “evidence was not as clear cut” that Thompson died of a preventable heart attack.

The two treating physicians, she added, “did exactly as different Cox providers did (at the earlier emergency room visit), which is the standard of care in Missouri,” including a colonoscopy scheduled for days after her death.

“A provider cannot give someone the large amount of blood thinner (Heparin) required to perform a cardiac catheterization if a blood leak from an unknown location is causing her anemia,” Gullet said. “The amount given could kill the patient.”

RELATED: Click to search for and submit your Verdicts & Settlements

Defense verdict

Wrongful death

Venue: Greene County Circuit Court

Case Number/Date:  2031-CC00269/April 19, 2024

Judge  Joshua Christensen

Plaintiff’s Experts: Dr. John Cascone, Joplin (infectious diseases/internal medicine); Dr. Cam Patterson, Little Rock, Arkansas (cardiology); William Rogers, Prairie Village, Kansas (accounting/damage/forensics)

Defendant’s Experts: Dr. Morton Rinder, Chesterfield (cardiology); Dr. Mark Griesemer, Springfield (emergency medicine)

Caption: Brian Thompson, Michael Thompson v. Lester E Cox Medical Centers

Plaintiff’s Attorneys: Nichelle Oxley (lead) and Andrew Smith; Humphrey, Farrington & McCain, Independence

Defendant’s Attorneys: Brian Malkmus (lead) and Debra Gullet-Johson, Malkmus Law Firm, Springfield