An R.I. Superior Court jury yesterday returned a $21.5 million verdict in a Newport wrongful-death suit. With interest, the award is expected to total more than $28 million.
The six-member R.I. Superior Court jury received the case – Thomas Noel O’Sullivan et al v. Newport Emergency Physicians Inc. and Charles L. Stengel M.D. – on Friday, Feb. 2, and returned its verdict at 3 p.m. yesterday.
O’Sullivan filed the lawsuit in 1999, after the death of his wife, Julia Mary Walsh O’Sullivan, 34. At the time, Newport Emergency Physicians provided emergency services at Newport Hospital. The husband’s suit initially also named Rhode Island Hospital and two of its doctors, but he dropped those claims during the trial.
During a four-day period in 1999, Julia O’Sullivan went to Newport Hospital three times complaining of flu-like symptoms. On the third visit, she was admitted and transferred to Rhode Island Hospital, in Providence, where she died of pneumonia on March 1.
The jury awarded $9 million to Thomas O’Sullivan for the loss of his wife; $4 million to each of the couples’ three minor children – Kieran, Clodagh and Aoife – for the loss of their mother; and $500,000 to Julia O’Sullivan’s estate, for her pain and suffering.
