On July 18th, a Cook County jury gave justice to the family of Dolores Trendel. Awarding $4.1 million dollars, a record-setting verdict under the Nursing Home Care Act, the jury found Assisi at Clare Oaks Senior Living in Bartlett, Illinois, liable for stopping a medication that caused a stroke and ultimately ended 85 year old Dolores Trendel’s life.
Doctor vs. Staff
In January 2011, Ms. Trendel was admitted to Assisi at Clare Oaks to undergo physical therapy after a fall at her Schaumburg home caused a broken hip.
In March 2011, the facility claims they tested Ms. Trendel to reevaluate her need for Coumadin, a blood-thinning medication, and that her physician ordered the medication to be stopped, despite test results showing that her dosage needed to be increased. 4 days later, Ms. Trendel suffered a stroke that was attributed to halting the medication. Having previously enjoyed an active and happy life, Ms. Trendel’s remaining days changed drastically due the stroke. She ultimately passed away 2 years after the lawsuit was filed.
The staff at Clare Oaks claimed that Ms. Trendel’s doctor ordered Coumadin to be stopped, but the doctor argued that he would never have made such an order, leaving the jury to determine which version was the true story of events. In addition to the facility stopping her life-saving medication, there was continual neglect of a policy that commands each resident’s medications be evaluated daily.
The physician was found not liable and the jury swiftly awarded over $4 million to Ms. Trendel’s family from Assisi at Clare Oaks. Ms. Trendel would have been 89 years old.
Articles covering the lawsuit and record-setting verdict appeared in both the Daily Herald and the Cook County Record.
