Brennan Burtker LLC congratulates Partner Mark M. Brennan and Associate Stephanie Schumacher on securing a successful defense verdict for a gastroenterologist on November 10 in a multi-party medical malpractice trial. The patient presented to the hospital with non-specific complaints of abdominal pain and constipation in 2020. A routine work-up revealed highly elevated liver enzyme levels. The gastroenterologist was consulted for an acute liver injury and created a differential diagnosis for its etiology, which included autoimmune hepatitis. He also developed a plan for an image-guided liver biopsy if the patient deteriorated. On the following day, the gastroenterologist evaluated the patient and noted she had already been scheduled for a liver biopsy, renal biopsy, and access catheter placement, none of which he ordered.  That morning, the patient’s INR increased from 1.5 to 1.8, and she developed mental status changes. The gastroenterologist believed that the elevation in INR, along with the onset of mental status changes and elevated liver enzyme levels, were consistent with the development of acute liver failure and allowed the liver biopsy to proceed. During the liver biopsy, the patient’s liver was lacerated. The plaintiff argued that the liver biopsy was unnecessary because pending serologic tests would have enabled the gastroenterologist to diagnose autoimmune hepatitis without a biopsy. The plaintiff further argued that the patient’s elevated INR rendered her coagulopathic with an increased risk for bleeding from the procedures. The plaintiff named multiple defendants but targeted the gastroenterologist on the notion that her death would have never occurred had he paused the biopsy and/or reversed her coagulopathy prior to biopsy, which would have prevented the bleeding and hemorrhage from all three procedures which led to the patient’s death. The plaintiff requested over $20 million from a Cook County jury for wrongful death and survival damages. Brennan and Schumacher argued that plaintiff’s case was premised on a misunderstanding of medicine, and that an elevated INR in patients with acute liver failure does not render those patients at an increased risk of bleeding. They further argued that the liver biopsy was indicated and appropriate to obtain a definitive diagnosis for her liver failure due to the elevated INR in conjunction with mental status changes and continued elevated levels of liver enzymes. Finally, Brennan and Schumacher argued that the sole cause of the patient’s death was the laceration to the liver caused by an interventional radiologist who was named a defendant but never appeared in the lawsuit. The case was tried nearly 3 weeks before Judge Scott McKenna, following a mistrial in the initial proceeding. The jury returned a global defense verdict in favor of the gastroenterologist and 3 other defendants in about 4 hours.