Cook County Jury Awards $7.25 Million After Cesarean Hemorrhage Forces Emergency Hysterectomy

The case began with an unplanned cesarean section at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. During the surgery, a resident physician and her supervising fellow damaged the patient's uterine vessels. The injury was not recognized at the time, and a shift change followed soon after the delivery.

The mother, 32 years old, began bleeding heavily. Postpartum hemorrhage is a known and treatable emergency when it is caught early. Her blood loss met the hospital's own Red Alert criteria, the threshold meant to bring an attending physician to the bedside right away. The nurse on duty did not make that call, and treatment was delayed. By the time the bleeding was finally controlled, surgeons had performed a hysterectomy and removed one ovary and her cervix. She also needed a ureteral reimplantation and a repair of her bladder. The damage was permanent. At 32, she could no longer have children.

The matter went to trial at the Richard J. Daley Center before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Bridget Mitchell. It was a no-offer case, meaning the defense put no settlement money on the table before the two week trial opened on April 20, 2026. Clifford Law Offices partner Sarah F. King led the plaintiffs' team, joined by partner David F. Jasinski and associate Devin J. Piper. The defendants were five University of Illinois Hospital doctors and a nurse.

King and her colleagues traced the harm to a chain of failures: the surgical injury to the uterine vessels, the team's failure to catch that injury as care passed from one shift to the next, and the nurse's failure to escalate once the bleeding crossed the Red Alert line. Caught and treated on time, they argued, the hemorrhage would not have cost their client her uterus.

The jury of seven men and five women deliberated about six hours before returning its verdict. The total came to $7.25 million. Of that, $6.75 million went to the woman for pain, suffering, emotional distress, and loss of a normal life, and $500,000 went to her husband for loss of society and companionship. The verdict is subject to a high-low agreement, a pre-verdict arrangement that sets a guaranteed minimum and caps the maximum the defendants must pay, so the amount the family actually collects may differ from the jury's figure.

According to the Cook County Jury Verdict Reporter, the award is a county record for a hysterectomy case. It passed the prior mark, a $5 million verdict that Clifford Law partner Keith A. Hebeisen won in 2009 for a 31-year-old woman.