Perez v. St. Alexius Medical Center
| Docket Number | 1-18-1887 |
| Decision Date | 08 April 2022 |
| Citation | 2022 IL App (1st) 181887,203 N.E.3d 972,461 Ill.Dec. 370 |
| Parties | Jesse PEREZ, as Independent Executor of the Estate of Marilyn Medina Perez, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ST. ALEXIUS MEDICAL CENTER, an Illinois Corporation; Jeffrey E. Chung, M.D.; Midsuburban Radiological Consultants of Woodstock, Ltd.; Christopher Michael, M.D. ; Brad L. Epstein, M.D. ; Suburban Women's Health Specialist, Ltd.; Donald R. Taylor, D.O.; Suburban Maternal Fetal Medicine, LLC; Vishvanath C. Karande, M.D.; and Karande and Associates, S.C., Defendants (St. Alexius Medical Center and Jeffrey E. Chung, M.D., Defendants-Appellees). |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Robert S. Baizer, Joseph E. Kolar, and David A. Neiman, of Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, and Michael W. Rathsack, of the Law Offices of Michael W. Rathsack, both of Chicago, for appellant.
Karen Kies DeGrand and Laura Coffey Ieremia, of Donohue Brown Mathewson & Smyth LLC, and Amy L. Anderson and Teresa R. Maher, of Brenner, Monroe, Scott & Anderson, Ltd., both of Chicago, for appellee Jeffrey E. Chung.
Hugh C. Griffin, David C. Hall, and Matthew J. Ennis, of Hall Prangle & Schoonveld, LLC, of Chicago, for other appellee.
¶ 1 Plaintiff, Jesse Perez (Jesse), as independent executor of the Estate of Marilyn Medina Perez, deceased, appeals a judgment following a jury trial for defendants St. Alexius Medical Center (St. Alexius) and Jeffrey Chung, M.D. Plaintiff also appeals trial court orders striking his petition for adjudication of criminal contempt against Chung and denying his motion to amend his posttrial motion to incorporate a perjury allegation from his contempt petition.
¶ 2 On appeal, plaintiff contends that (1) the jury's finding that Chung was not the apparent agent of St. Alexius was against the manifest weight of the evidence and the court erred by refusing to give jury instructions submitted by plaintiff related to apparent agency; (2) the court erred by barring plaintiff from using Chung's Illinois Supreme Court Rule 213(f) (eff. Jan. 1, 2018) disclosure against defendants as an evidentiary admission and as impeachment; (3) the court erred by allowing defendants’ expert to use certain images during his testimony even though defendants did not disclose them until the morning of the expert's testimony; (4) the court erred by barring plaintiff from cross-examining Chung with the American College of Radiology (ACR) practice guideline; (5) the cumulative effects of these errors denied plaintiff a fair trial and warrants a new trial; and (6) the court erred by dismissing plaintiff's petition for adjudication of criminal contempt against Chung and by denying plaintiff's posttrial motion to include the allegations of perjury in the petition. Defendants contend that the two-issue rule precludes plaintiff from establishing reversible error. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.1
¶ 4 In 2014, plaintiff brought this civil action against various defendants including Chung, St. Alexius, Dr. Christopher Michael, M.D., and Suburban Women's Health Specialists, Ltd. (Suburban). At trial, the jury considered claims against only Chung, Michael, St. Alexius, and Suburban. On May 21, 2018, the jury issued verdicts in favor of Chung and St. Alexius against plaintiff and in favor of plaintiff against Michael and Suburban. The court entered judgment on the verdicts for Chung and St. Alexius that day and entered judgment regarding Michael and Suburban on May 29, 2018. Plaintiff filed his posttrial motion on June 18, 2018, and later filed his petition to adjudicate Chung in criminal contempt and motion to amend his posttrial motion. The court struck the contempt petition and then denied the posttrial motion and the motion to amend on August 28, 2018. Plaintiff filed his notice of appeal on August 31, 2018. Accordingly, we have jurisdiction here pursuant to article VI, section 6, of the Illinois Constitution ( Ill. Const. 1970, art. VI, § 6 ) and Illinois Supreme Court Rule 301 (eff. Feb. 1, 1994) and Rule 303 (eff. July 1, 2017).
¶ 6 This is a wrongful death and survival action raising medical malpractice claims regarding Marilyn Perez (Marilyn), who died from metastatic pelvic abdominal cancer about seven months after she gave birth to twins by caesarean section. The cancer, discovered during the June 2013 cesarean section, originated from a teratoma on her left ovary that ruptured in May 2013. Plaintiff brought suit against various defendants including physicians who treated Marilyn before and during her pregnancy. The case went to a jury trial against Michael, an obstetrician-gynecologist involved in her treatment; Suburban, Michael's medical practice; Chung, the radiologist who interpreted Marilyn's ultrasound when she came into St. Alexius's emergency room on August 11, 2012; and St. Alexius under an apparent agency theory. The jury returned verdicts in favor of plaintiff against Michael and Suburban for $25 million. It returned verdicts for Chung and St. Alexius, finding that Chung was not an apparent agent of St. Alexius. Shortly after trial, the court dismissed Michael and Suburban from the case with prejudice based on a $1 million settlement. This appeal thus concerns only the verdicts and the rulings regarding Chung and St. Alexius.
¶ 8 Various experts testified about teratomas, which arise in ovaries and can contain such matter as fat, teeth, hair, or eyeballs. When a teratoma increases in size, it can cause the ovary to twist and thus compromise the ovary's blood supply. The risk of a teratoma rupturing, spilling its contents into the pelvis and abdomen, also increases as the mass gets larger. A mature teratoma is generally benign but with a 0.2 to 2% chance of transforming into a malignant teratoma.
¶ 9 A computed tomography (CT) scan is considered one of the best radiological methods to diagnose a teratoma and is superior to an ultrasound for that purpose. A CT scan has much better sensitivity and provides a better picture and more detail than an ultrasound. Air or matter in a person's bowel can obscure sound waves and make it difficult to identify structures and visualize a teratoma on an ultrasound.
¶ 11 Michael, Marilyn's primary obstetrician-gynecologist, referred her in September 2011 to Dr. Vishvanath Karande, an obstetrician-gynecologist and fertility specialist, for fertility treatment and in vitro fertilization.
¶ 12 On August 11, 2012, Marilyn went to the St. Alexius emergency room with pelvic pain, and emergency room physician Dr. Al Sarraj ordered a CT scan and ultrasound. Dr. Gregory Gullo read the CT scan and reported a teratoma on Marilyn's left ovary. Chung interpreted the ultrasound and reported that Marilyn's ovaries were "unremarkable" and there was "[n]o adnexal mass seen." Chung did not refer to the CT report or a teratoma in his report.
¶ 13 Michael saw Marilyn five days after her emergency room visit and reviewed the CT report, which identified the teratoma, and the ultrasound report, which did not refer to a teratoma. He also examined her and found an enlarged uterus, which he found consistent with fibroids, and no adnexal abnormalities. Michael concluded that Marilyn did not have a teratoma. Marilyn proceeded with in vitro fertilization treatments and became pregnant with twins after Karande implanted embryos in December 2012.
¶ 14 On March 8, 2013, Marilyn went to St. Alexius for abdominal pain and had an appendectomy after showing symptoms consistent with appendicitis. On March 13, 2013, she was admitted to St. Alexius for the same abdominal pain. A CT scan of Marilyn's pelvis taken that day showed she had a teratoma. Additional pregnancy ultrasounds, looking at the same area as a pelvic ultrasound, were taken in March 2013, and the physicians interpreting these ultrasounds did not identify the teratoma on the ultrasounds.
¶ 15 On May 3, 2013, Marilyn was admitted to St. Alexius for acute onset abdominal pain. Plaintiff's expert Dr. Marcela Guadalupe DelCarmen testified that the teratoma had ruptured at that time, causing the contents of the teratoma to leak. That leakage in turn caused Marilyn "stabbing abdominal pain" and tenderness and caused metastatic cancer to spread. During Marilyn's caesarian section on June 21, 2013, the ruptured teratoma was removed. On January 15, 2014, Marilyn died as a result of metastatic cancer from the teratoma.
¶ 17 On August 11, 2012, Marilyn's husband, Jesse, took her to the St. Alexius emergency room because she had severe pelvic pain. They chose St. Alexius as it was near their home, had a "very good reputation," and "was like a one-stop shop, *** any service you need was available there." They had gone to St. Alexius's emergency room about a year earlier due to the flu.
¶ 18 Jesse testified about the circumstances around Marilyn's execution of the consent form during the visit. As Marilyn was in the examination room, a woman came in and told Marilyn that she had "to sign here, here, here." The woman did not explain the form and was in the room for "[n]ot even a minute." Jesse acknowledged that Marilyn's signature was on the form, a one-page document entitled "Consent for Medical Treatment." The second section on the form contained an "Authorization to Release Information" section, which stated in the second paragraph:
"INDEPENDENT STATUS OF PHYSICIANS : I recognize that any or all physicians, residents, or medical students (under the supervision of physicians and/or residents), who furnish services to me during this admission are INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS and are NOT AGENTS OR EMPLOYEES OF THE HOSPITAL." (Emphasis in original.)
Jesse acknowledged that Marilyn had a PhD and was detail oriented. He could not recall whether Marilyn expressed any confusion about signing the form. Neither Marilyn...
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