58-Year-Old Husband and Father Diagnosed with Terminal Stage IV Colon Cancer

Our client and his wife came to us almost two years after he had been diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. He was referred to us by a friend whom we had helped a few years earlier. By the time our client walked into our office for our first meeting, he had already been through multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and a major surgery. He had been through hell and back and, unfortunately, none of the treatments worked. When we met our client, he was terminally ill, and his cancer had continued to spread despite all of his treatments. Before his diagnosis, our client had been to his primary care physician’s office every year — but he was usually seen by a nurse practitioner, instead of his doctor. Despite clear guidelines mandating that doctors order colonoscopies for their patients when they reach the age of 50, our client’s doctor had never said a word to him about the need for such testing. By the time our client was diagnosed, he was symptomatic with blood in his stool, and the primary tumor in his colon had already metastasized to his liver. In the year or so our client was in our lives, we never once heard him complain. Our team of lawyers and two paralegals assigned to his case developed a close and trusting relationship with our client and his family. We hired two incredibly talented medical experts — one of whom was prepared to testify that our client’s primary care doctor had committed malpractice by failing to recommend a colonoscopy, and another who told us that the delay in diagnosing our client’s cancer allowed it to spread. We also retained a team of economic experts whose job it was to quantify the earnings that our client and his family had lost due to the disabling nature of his cancer. Our client ultimately lost his battle with his disease, but before he passed, we were able to secure a multi-million dollar settlement for him and his family. Our client was an incredible man — resilient, strong, selfless. When he left our conference room that first day we met him, he asked me to promise that we would get him answers, and that if his doctors had made a serious mistake, we would take care of his family. Despite our client’s death, we’re proud to say we kept our promise to him, and that his family will be forever taken care of financially.