A Florida jury has awarded $2,102,108.72 to a man whose wife died after doctors failed to diagnose and treat an acute pulmonary embolism that she showed signs of during an emergency room visit. The woman later died while undergoing surgery to remove her gallbladder, and the verdict came only after an earlier trial in the same case ended without a resolution.
The case centered on a woman who sought emergency medical care after experiencing symptoms caused by the blood clot, according to West Orlando News. Despite the signs she presented at the emergency room, the pulmonary embolism went undiagnosed and untreated. Rubenstein Law announced that litigating attorney Michael Petruccelli secured the verdict on behalf of the woman's husband, whose case alleged the preventable loss of his wife.
The defendants denied responsibility for their collective failure to diagnose and treat the pulmonary embolism, the outlet's report notes. The case first went to trial in January, but that proceeding ended in a hung jury, forcing Petruccelli and his client back to square one months later.
A Second Trial, A Different Outcome
The second trial took place in July, according to the same report, with Petruccelli presenting evidence to an entirely new jury. This time, jurors reached a verdict, awarding the full $2,102,108.72 in favor of Petruccelli's client. Petruccelli said the jury carefully considered the evidence in reaching its decision.
Petruccelli, a partner at Rubenstein Law's Fort Lauderdale office and a Board Certified Civil Trial Attorney specializing in medical malpractice and wrongful death litigation, framed the verdict as more than a financial outcome. The jury's decision, per the report, delivered justice for the client and accountability for the failures that led to the loss of his wife. Rubenstein Law said the verdict reflects the firm's continued dedication to advocating for patients and families harmed by preventable medical errors.
Why Pulmonary Embolisms Are So Often Missed
The clinical stakes behind the case are significant. Venous thromboembolism, which includes pulmonary embolism, affects up to 900,000 people annually in the United States and causes between 60,000 and 100,000 deaths, making it the third leading cause of cardiovascular death in the nation, according to research published on PMC. A pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot formed elsewhere in the body travels to the lungs and blocks blood flow through the arteries.
Diagnosing the condition quickly is notoriously difficult even for trained emergency staff. Computed tomography pulmonary angiography, the standard diagnostic benchmark for pulmonary embolism, carries a missed diagnosis rate of approximately 14%, contributing to untreated PE mortality rates as high as 30%, per a separate PMC study. Non-specific or atypical symptoms in the emergency room frequently lead medical staff to mistake the condition for something less critical.
Florida's High Bar for Malpractice Claims
Cases like this one do not reach a jury easily. Under Florida Statute § 766.106, medical malpractice plaintiffs must complete a mandatory 90-day pre-suit screening process and submit a verified written opinion from a medical expert corroborating reasonable grounds for negligence before a lawsuit can even be filed, according to The Florida Senate. Plaintiffs must also act within a strict window: Florida Statute § 95.11(4)(b) requires malpractice lawsuits to be filed within two years of when the injury was or should have been discovered, subject to an absolute four-year statute of repose.
Those hurdles are compounded by the financial reality of retrying a case after a hung jury, which requires a firm to absorb significant added expense and rework its trial strategy. Rubenstein Law, founded in 1988 by attorney Robert Rubenstein, has grown to 13 offices across Florida with more than 60 attorneys and 400 supporting professionals, giving it the scale to pursue a second trial months after the first one stalled.
No Cap on the Widower's Damages
Because Florida's Supreme Court struck down statutory caps on non-economic damages in medical negligence cases, including in Estate of McCall v. United States and North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan, juries retain full authority to award uncapped damages for pain and suffering, according to GrayRobinson. Those rulings found the earlier limits unconstitutional under the state's equal protection clause; before them, Florida law had restricted non-economic damages in medical negligence cases to between $500,000 and $1 million.
Under Florida's Wrongful Death Act, surviving spouses are eligible to recover full non-economic damages for the loss of companionship, protection, and mental pain and suffering caused by medical negligence, per Ben Crump Law. It remains a point of friction in Florida law that adult children, unlike surviving spouses, are generally barred from recovering pain-and-suffering damages in medical negligence cases.
The verdict lands amid continued debate in Florida over the cost of medical liability. The state consistently ranks among those with the highest medical malpractice litigation costs and insurance premiums, fueling legislative battles between healthcare provider groups pushing for damage caps and trial attorneys who argue such caps unfairly penalize catastrophically injured patients and families. It is not the first large verdict Rubenstein Law has secured this year; the firm also won nearly $4 million for a Kissimmee mom in an Osceola County personal injury trial in March. Whether the defendants in this malpractice case plan to pursue post-trial motions or an appeal has not been reported.
