Veteran Widow Awarded $1.3 Million for Medical Malpractice

The Court held a bench trial in January 2025, to determine the appropriate measure of damages for Mrs. Janet Palmer’s loss of the comfort, society, and companionship of her late husband and for his conscious pain (more below) and suffering that he experienced for thirteen days at Togus VA Medical Hospital. U.S. District Judge Stacey Neumann awarded $175,000 for Roy Palmer’s “conscious pain, suffering and mental anguish,” $450,000 for economic losses and $750,000 for Janet Palmer’s loss of companionship.

Drug Overdose

On April 6, 2020, Janet Palmer dropped her husband at the hospital when he complained of abdominal pain – when COVID restrictions were in place. For the next three days, Roy Palmer was prescribed extremely high doses of opioid painkillers along with a conflicting sedative. According to court documents, he immediately received one milligram of intravenous hydromorphone, an opioid, every two hours as needed. Still in pain the next day, the dosage increased to sixteen milligrams. By the third day, April 8, he received twenty milligrams of IV hydromorphone and another Togus VA hospitalist ordered thirty milligrams of Oxazepam, a benzodiazepine. Hydromorphone and Oxazepam have box warnings that the use of benzodiazepines and opioids together may result in profound sedation, respiratory depression, coma, and death.

On April 9, Mr. Palmer was again given thirty milligrams of Oxazepam and after two additional doses of hydromorphone, his blood pressure dropped. He was admitted to an overflow medical-surgical unit, without continuous vital sign monitoring. A few hours later, he was not breathing and was in cardiac arrest caused by an overdose of the drugs. CPR was performed and his pulse returned. Four minutes after his pulse returned, Mr. Palmer was intubated. After he was resuscitated, Mr. Palmer was transferred to Maine Medical Center (MMC) in Portland, where medical providers induced therapeutic hypothermia to attempt to reduce brain cell damage. He slipped in and out of consciousness, able to respond to commands but unable to verbally communicate. He died on April 30.

Sadly, Janet Palmer was only permitted to see him two days before he died – the first time since he was admitted to the Togus VA, due to COVID restrictions. According to the Maine News Center, she held his hand and talked to him. According to the lawsuit, Mr. Palmer remained unable to verbally communicate, but he was able to follow commands, demonstrating that he was conscious. Mr. Palmer’s medical providers found it difficult to balance reducing his myoclonus with sedatives against overly sedating him. (Myoclonus is involuntary and uncontrollable muscle contractions consisting of sudden, brief, and lightning-like moves.)

The Lawsuit

The lawsuit claimed that nobody properly monitored or adjusted his medications. Medical staff at the hospital reportedly overrode automatic safety alerts that warned against exceeding recommended dosages. “Everyone thought that someone else was responsible for adjusting Mr. Palmer’s medication when, in fact, no one was,” Janet Palmer’s attorney said.

The Government argued that the damages for Mr. Palmer’s conscious pain and suffering should be “moderate” because he had diminished consciousness. Experts for both parties reviewed Mr. Palmer’s medical records, from his admittance to Togus, to his admission to MMC and to the end of his life. They evaluated whether and to what extent Mr. Palmer experienced conscious pain and suffering from the time of his cardiac arrest until his death. They both determined that he suffered conscious pain for thirteen days.

The lawsuit further said: “Prior to entering the Togus VA for abdominal pain and ultimately being rendered unconscious by the Government’s negligence, Mr. Palmer could walk, talk, eat, and engage in all his normal activities of daily life. The next time he regained consciousness, he was at an entirely different hospital, intubated and hooked up to machines in the ICU, and unable to communicate. Mr. Palmer was isolated from Mrs. Palmer and all other family and friends throughout the rest of his conscious life.”