Ulster jury awards $4.6 million in wrongful death case

KINGSTON – An Ulster County
State Supreme Court jury awarded the family of a Kerhonkson veterinarian
$4.6 million in what the family’s attorney said is the largest verdict
in a wrongful death case ever in the county.
The hospital issued a statement on Wednesday saying they “disagree
with the jury’s verdict and will make a motion to set it aside.
We also reserve the option to file an appeal.”
Walter Friedlander was 63 when he experienced severe pains on the evening of February 13, 2011. His wife Valerie drove him to the Kingston Hospital emergency room. He was admitted and doctors performed preliminary blood tests and then basically ignored him, according to the family attorney, Judith Livingston of Manhattan.
The doctors suspected he might be suffering from pancreatitis, but failed to do the proper tests, she said. They then failed to diagnose a more dangerous condition of sepsis.
Less than 36 hours after being admitted to the hospital, he was dead, leaving his wife and son.
“The only way our legal system allows a party to deal with the enormity of this loss is through a financial verdict,” said attorney Livingston.   “Hopefully, more importantly, it serves as an example of what should not be done so that this mistake never occurs to other people in the future.”  
The jury of three women and three men heard testimony for two weeks before concluding there were three culpable parties – Kingston Hospital, at 33 percent; Dr. Douglas Heller, Friedlander’s primary care doctor and who examined him at the hospital, at 33 percent; and Dr. Nicholas Golden, a gastroenterologist, who was called in as a consultant on Friedlander’s condition, at 34 percent.