Silver Cross Hospital Settles for $8 Million After Woman Dies From Untreated Septic Kidney Infection

In April 2017, a 61-year-old woman from Joliet went to Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox complaining of pain from a kidney stone. Within two hours of her admission, her medical records documented both an infected kidney and a stone blocking her urinary tract. What those records also showed, though staff apparently did not act on, was that she had been born with only one kidney, leaving her no functional reserve if that organ failed.

Doctors and nurses waited for the stone to pass on its own rather than addressing the underlying infection. Over the next 26 hours her condition deteriorated. The infection spread and turned septic. She died at the hospital.

Her family retained Levin and Perconti and filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court, naming Silver Cross Hospital and listing 28 counts of negligence against the team of 10 medical professionals who treated her. The complaint alleged that the diagnosis of a septic kidney was not a close call: the records made it clear early on, and a treatable infection was allowed to become fatal through inaction.

The case moved toward trial in October 2022. On October 11, the day jury selection was set to begin, Silver Cross Hospital agreed to settle for $8 million. Margaret Battersby Black of Levin and Perconti, who represented the family, described the infection as 'completely treatable' and the resulting sepsis as 'completely preventable.'

Silver Cross Hospital confirmed the settlement in a brief statement and declined further comment on pending litigation. No trial verdict was reached and no appellate reduction applies to the settlement amount.