Medical Justice provides free consultations to doctors facing medico-legal obstacles. We have solutions for doctor-patient conflicts, unwarranted demands for refunds, online defamation (patient review mischief), meritless litigation, and a gazillion other issues. We also provide counsel specific to COVID-19. If you are navigating a medico-legal obstacle, visit our booking page to schedule a free consultation – or use the tool shared below.

In 2017, a 99-year-old woman, Catherine Leona Delo was declared dead at Olympic Medical Center in Washington state.

Evelyn Galland said her mother’s bloodstained sheets and apparently broken nose, which the hospital acknowledges were discovered two days later on Feb. 17 at the funeral home, indicated she was alive up to two days after being declared dead.

Galland brought her mother to the hospital because she was experiencing medical and interaction difficulties and asked that she be put on do-not-resuscitate status.

Galland said her mother was denied hydration fluids and oxygen and was put on increasingly larger doses of morphine.

“It is my belief that defendant took her off fluids and oxygen to speed her death,” Galland said in her Dec. 20 declaration.

“That is a horrific thing to do. I have continuing nightmares about her treatment at [the medical center] and both myself and my mother being trapped.

“When I learned that the mortuary found my mother blood-soaked, and with a broken nose, I was shocked and worried that my mother had suffered what would be unimagined fear and pain.

“Dead people don’t bleed in quantity,” she said.

The death certificate stated the patient died of cardiorespiratory failure, severe sepsis, pneumonia, and a urinary tract infection.

The narrative being woven is this.

When the mortuary received the body to start the embalming process, they noted blood-stained sheets, and there was no record of blood-stained sheets covering the patient as she was placed in a body bag. A bruised eye and a broken nose also were not documented. This indicated a suffocating patient was trapped in a metaphorical coffin clawing to get out. A horrifying image indeed.

The medical center is having none of this. It is arguing a forensic pathologist classified the death as natural.

“[The forensic pathologist] also found that no traumatic injury including the injury to her nose contributed to her death and that her nose and eye injuries could have occurred postmortem,” according to the motion for summary judgment.

[The patient] was brought to the hospital Feb. 5, 2017. By Feb. 9, Delo was “largely unresponsive.”

On Feb. 11 she was given morphine after appearing to be in pain and lorazepam after she began yelling and flailing her arms.

“On Feb. 15, after several days of being neurologically unresponsive, Ms. Delo succumbed to her long list of health problems and was pronounced dead at 16:30 by Karen S. Tyler, R.N.”

The Medical Center filed for summary judgment. It prevailed on most, but not all claims. The judge ruled there are still too many facts in dispute. Expert testimony will be needed “to establish the standard of care on declaring death.”

Will this case be quietly settled or go to trial?

My guess – the former.

From an accounting perspective, the economic damages associated with a 99-year-old woman who was arguably minimally responsive are low[1]. On the other hand, the negative publicity associated with images reminiscent of the movie Serpent and the Rainbow would be devastating. For those of you who are scared of nothing, try watching the “buried alive” scenes in this movie to test your resolve. Props to those who remember the movie. Extra kudos to those who remember the mechanism of action of the alleged neurotoxin – tetrodotoxin.

What do you think?

[1] Sure, there are non-economic damages associated with pain and suffering…but the patient was supposedly minimally responsive even before the “event.”

Medical Justice provides free consultations to doctors facing medico-legal obstacles. We have solutions for doctor-patient conflicts, unwarranted demands for refunds, online defamation (patient review mischief), meritless litigation, and a gazillion other issues. We also provide counsel specific to COVID-19. If you are navigating a medico-legal obstacle, visit our booking page to schedule a free consultation – or use the tool shared below.

Jeffrey Segal, MD, JD

Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Dr. Jeffrey Segal, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Medical Justice, is a board-certified neurosurgeon. Dr. Segal is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons; the American College of Legal Medicine; and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. He is also a member of the North American Spine Society. In the process of conceiving, funding, developing, and growing Medical Justice, Dr. Segal has established himself as one of the country’s leading authorities on medical malpractice issues, counterclaims, and internet-based assaults on reputation.

Dr. Segal was a practicing neurosurgeon for approximately ten years, during which time he also played an active role as a participant on various state-sanctioned medical review panels designed to decrease the incidence of meritless medical malpractice cases.

Dr. Segal holds a M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine, where he also completed a neurosurgical residency. Dr. Segal served as a Spinal Surgery Fellow at The University of South Florida Medical School. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa as well as the AOA Medical Honor Society. Dr. Segal received his B.A. from the University of Texas and graduated with a J.D. from Concord Law School with highest honors.

In 2000, he co-founded and served as CEO of DarPharma, Inc, a biotechnology company in Chapel Hill, NC, focused on the discovery and development of first-of-class pharmaceuticals for neuropsychiatric disorders.

Dr. Segal is also a partner at Byrd Adatto, a national business and health care law firm. Byrd Adatto was selected as a Best Law Firm in the 2021 edition of the “Best Law Firms” list by U.S. News – Best Lawyers. With over 50 combined years of experience in serving doctors, dentists, and other providers, Byrd Adatto has a national pedigree to address most legal issues that arise in the business and practice of medicine.