$10 million awarded by jury in Oakland
4/17/01

Hospital to pay for woman's death - April 17, 2001

An Oakland County jury slapped Beaumont Hospital with a $10-million verdict Monday for failing to diagnose a heart condition in a pregnant woman who eventually died.

Dolores Little of Commerce Township was 25 weeks pregnant when her husband Scott found her dead in their bed on Sept. 25, 1995.

Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who represented Scott Little during the monthlong trial in Oakland County Circuit Court, said Beaumont doctors treating Dolores Little never listened to her heart.

Little, he said, had told her Beaumont doctors she had a heart condition and had complained to doctors that she had chest pains not long before she died.

"And they didn't even bother to listen to her heart or her lungs," he said. An autopsy showed she died from congestive heart failure and heart disease, Fieger said.

Beaumont officials said they were disappointed with the verdict. "And we're strongly considering an appeal of the decision," said Brian Bierley, spokesman for the Royal Oak hospital. He declined to discuss details of the case.

The jury deliberated for two days, after four weeks of trial before visiting Judge Vesta Svenson.

The fetus was viable, Fieger said, and would have lived if doctors had determined the mother's condition.

Return to the Fieger Current Case page