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Health May 06, 2022
Picture of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center | Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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The first lawsuit filed by family members of television judge Glenda Hatchett, who claim a loved one died in 2016 due to medical malpractice at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, has been settled “in principle,” according to lawyers in the case.
In the wake of the announcement during a hearing Thursday before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert B. Broadbelt, the judge ordered attorneys for the plaintiffs — Charles Johnson IV, Hatchett’s son, and his two minor boys — to file a notice of settlement of the lawsuit against Cedars-Sinai by May 12.
The suit is separate from the one the same family brought Tuesday against Cedars-Sinai alleging that race played a death in the April 13, 2016, death of 39-year-old Kira Johnson, Charles Johnson’s wife. He maintains in the new suit that his attorneys discovered the disparity in care women of color receive at Cedars-Sinai compared to white women during depositions in the first suit.
The hospital released a statement in response to the second suit.
“We are actively working to eradicate unconscious bias in health care and advance equity in health care more broadly,” the statement read. “We commend Mr. Johnson for the attention he has brought to the important issue of racial disparities in maternal outcomes.”
In the first suit, the plaintiffs alleged Kira Johnson died due to the negligence of doctors at Cedars-Sinai on April 13, 2016. She had received prenatal care and delivery at the hospital, according to the plaintiffs.
“This is a case where a woman was negligently allowed to bleed to death internally while her husband watched her slowly fade away,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys stated in their court papers. “It wasn’t one, two, three, or even four hours. Plaintiff Charles Johnson personally witnessed and experienced approximately seven hours of fright, shock and horror while bright red blood continued to come out of his wife’s catheter as the life bled out of her.”
In a sworn declaration, Johnson alleged the hospital medical staff “negligently failed to take prompt action to care for my wife after I saw them become aware of the bright red blood in Kira’s catheter bag. I saw the bag changed and then again saw bright red blood fill Kira’s catheter bag.”
Johnson said he believed what he saw at the time was “not a good sign. I was very concerned for Kira’s well-being and I was concerned by the lack of prompt medical attention. I waited and waited, hour after hour, by her side as my wife slowly bled to death. I saw her deteriorate.”
In their court papers, defense attorneys maintained the doctors’ actions were within the applicable standard of medical care. Disputing Johnson’s claim for emotional distress, the defense lawyers say he was told to stand behind a curtain where he could see his wife’s face, but not what the physicians were doing with his wife’s stomach.
“There was nothing that caused Mr. Johnson a concern during the Cesarean section,” the defense attorneys stated in their court papers.
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