SALT LAKE CITY (Legal Newsline) - The Utah Supreme Court upheld a $4 million jury verdict for children who claim doctors misled them into removing their mother from a ventilator, but threw out a $450,000 judgment to compensate them for their mother’s suffering in the eight hours after they pulled the plug.
There was no evidence the mother actually suffered, since she was heavily sedated and unconscious until she died, the Supreme Court ruled. It rejected an appeal by doctors who argued the plaintiffs had to prove not only that they violated the standard of care for terminally ill patients, but which standard applied.
Jenafer Birt Meeks sued doctors Wei Peng and Christina Richards after her mother Lilian Birt died in the intensive care unit after contracting pneumonia and sepsis following surgery. Meeks and her family members agreed to remove Birt from the ventilator after Dr. Peng told them their mother had an 80% of surviving in a nursing home but would never be able to breathe on her own.
The children argued the doctors failed to “actively dissuade” them from ending care, saying the doctors should have told them “to take the matter `to the ethics committee,’” or “say no and go to court.” Meeks also testified that her mother writhed and struggled to breath during two weaning tests, when they withdrew pain medicine, allowed her to wake up and removed her from the ventilator.
A jury awarded $4 million to the children and $1 million to the mother for her suffering before she died, reduced to the statutory maximum of $450,000. The doctors appealed, arguing the trial judge erred by failing to instruct the jury the plaintiff was obligated to prove which standard of care the doctors violated, and there was no evidence their unconscious mother suffered.
The Utah Supreme Court upheld the judgment for the children but threw out the pain and suffering award for the mother in a Feb. 15 opinion by Justice Diana Hagen.
On appeal, the doctors argued plaintiffs had to prove there was a standard of care requiring them not only to inform the children about their mother’s chance of survival, but to actively dissuade them from removing her from the ventilator. The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling jurors can decide the standard of care and whether it was violated at the same time.
“A jury could not determine whether Ms. Meeks had proved there was a breach of the standard of care without first determining that she had proved what standard of care applied,” the court ruled.
The court agreed with the doctors that there was no evidence to support the suffering verdict for the mother, however. At trial, Third District Judge Matthew Bates said “this is not one of those cases where it takes medical expertise” for the jury to draw a connection between the mother’s suffering when she was conscious during the weaning trials and later when she was sedated. But the Supreme Court disagreed, saying the two situations were different and the plaintiffs failed to support their claim.
Karra J. Porter and Anna P. Christiansen represented the plaintiffs, while Troy L. Booher, Caroline A. Olsen and Taylor P. Webb represented the defendants.