Clifford Law Offices Files a Lawsuit on Behalf of a 33-Year-Old Chicago Area Woman Who Had a Healthy Breast Removed at an Illinois Hospital

Clifford Law Offices filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 on behalf of a 33-year-old Chicago area woman who had a healthy breast removed at an Illinois hospital. Molly Akers of suburban New Lenox has been severely disfigured and is in constant pain since an Illinois surgeon removed her right breast allegedly because hospital employees mislabeled the pathology specimen of another patient who was reported to have cancer. Akers did not have breast cancer.

"I never thought something like this could happen to me, but I now know that medical malpractice can ruin your life," Akers said on the filing of her lawsuit. "The Illinois legislature should remember that malpractice hurts real people."

Akers brought her lawsuit to bring to light the devastation that capping damages can have on someone injured by medical malpractice. "Hospitals seem to be more interested in their advertising budgets than in investing in patient safety. Insurance companies only want to increase their bottom line. I think if something like this happened to politicians or their loved ones, they’d feel differently about limiting damage for those injured by malpractice," she said.

Akers and her attorneys, Robert A. Clifford and Keith A. Hebeisen, partners at Clifford Law Offices in Chicago, held a news conference in the Illinois State Capitol at 2 p.m. on Tuesday May 10th while legislators considered the issue of limiting "non-economic damages."

"This legislation rewards negligent doctors and hospitals, but punishes innocent patients who are severely injured or killed by malpractice," Clifford said. "They want to penalize those they injure and kill and reward the insurance industry which is obviously riddled with scandal at this time."

Illinois AFL-CIO President, Margaret Blackshere, also intended to speak at the press conference against the pending legislation.