Dawn Rosenshine, Exec. v. Medical College Hospitals, Case No. 1998-04701

Medical College Hospitals (MCH), now known as University of Toledo Health Sciences Campus, will have to pay Dawn Rosenshine $210,743 for negligence in a medical malpractice and wrongful death case. The Court of Claims of Ohio approved the settlement agreement on March 15.

Rosenshine said doctors at MCH failed to respond to her mother’s abnormal chest x-ray.  Her mother, Theresa Dougherty, was admitted to MCH on May 1995. The abnormality turned out to be a cancerous lung tumor and it was left untreated for 18 months.  Dougherty’s cancer spread and became inoperable and Dougherty died in 1997.

Rosenshine filed a claim on April 24, 1998 stating: “Medical College Hospitals, its agents and employees deviated from the medical standard of care in diagnosing and/or treating and/or informing Theresa Dougherty of cancer from which she suffered.”

The case was delayed in part when one of the doctors sought immunity stating he only signed the release forms for Dougherty in 1995 but did not treat or see her during her three-day stay at MCH. He also stated he should get immunity because MCH is an “instrumentality of the State of Ohio” and physicians employed by the state are entitled to “statutory immunity for injuries caused during the course of carrying out their employment duties.”

In 2004, the Court of Claims granted the doctor immunity, but the Tenth District Court of Appeals, the court that hears all Court of Claims appeals, reversed the decision, citing an Ohio Supreme Court decision from 2002.

In 2007, the Court of Claims said the Supreme Court case should not apply retroactively, but agreed with the appeals court that the doctor should not be immune as he was not working in the state’s interest at the time he signed the release papers.

The case went before a magistrate on December 2012, where Rosenshine and her two siblings were each awarded $30,000 and one granddaughter was awarded $10,000. The family also received $100,000 for a survivorship claim and more than $10,000 for funeral and burial expenses.

The Court of Claims is given original jurisdiction to hear and determine all civil actions filed against the State of Ohio and its agencies.

To access information on other cases visit the Court of Claims website.

Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Office of Public Information for the general public and news media. Opinion summaries are not prepared for every opinion, but only for noteworthy cases. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official headnotes or syllabi of court opinions. The full text of this and other court opinions are available online.