Record $2.5 Million Settlement for Failure to Diagnose Prostate Cancer
Press Release, 11/11/1998Keith Hebeisen, partner at Clifford Law Offices , received a record $2.5 million settlement Tuesday (Nov. 10) for a 56-year-old man whose life expectancy has been cut short after physicians failed to diagnose and treat his prostate cancer.
The doctors failed to act for more than a year upon an abnormal blood test and a nodule found on the prostate of Walter Turn of Norridge. By the time the cancer was detected in 1995, the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes.
The case settled during trial in Cook County Circuit Court before Judge Shelvin Louise Marie Hall.
The settlement is believed to be a record involving this type of case, the previous settlement in Cook County being $1.3 million.
"This was an example of a total breakdown in communication. There was no complicated medical issues involved," Hebeisen said. "The nodule was in plain sight. It was simply a failure of these doctors to act reasonably."
Defendants were a number of physicians who Turn had seen during the year before his cancer was diagnosed. The settlement is against urologist Dr. Walter Falkowski and his corporation, Prudencio & Falkowski. Turn v. Prudencio & Falkowski, et. al, 96 L 10893.
