A Wayne County Jury Returns Nearly $40 Million Against the Detroit Medical Center After an ER Missed a Fatal Blood Clot

Terrea Holly was 26 years old when she went to Detroit Receiving Hospital, part of the Detroit Medical Center, with shortness of breath. According to her family's case, she arrived with signs that pointed to a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot that lodges in the lungs and can kill quickly when it is missed. The emergency room sent her home and told her she had a virus. She died the next day.

Her mother, Dushon Watkins, was left with the questions that a hospital visit was supposed to settle. "Nothing is ever the same," Watkins said after the verdict. "You don't get over it. You just learn to cope with it."

The estate hired Geoffrey Fieger, who tried the case in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit. His central argument was that Holly showed clear signs of a pulmonary embolism when she came in, and that staff discharged her without the testing that would have caught it. The contrast he drew was blunt: a hospital that advertised itself to patients who were short of breath had failed a young woman who walked in short of breath.

By Fieger's account at trial, the defense argued that the hospital could not accurately measure the oxygen in Holly's blood because she was African American. The jury was not persuaded. It returned a verdict of nearly $40 million, the largest reported in Michigan that year.

The headline figure will not reach the family in full. Michigan caps noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases, and Fieger told reporters the family "will never collect anywhere near $40 million." That reduction comes from the statutory caps written into Michigan law, not from any later ruling that the evidence failed to support the award.

The Detroit Medical Center said it was disappointed in the verdict and stood by its commitment to safe, high-quality patient care. For Watkins, the finding mattered more than the number. "She was a human being and she deserved respect," she said, "and now she's finally been served with justice."