Jury Awards $3 Million Against Enloe Medical Center After Patient Dies During Device Removal

Todd Stewart had a reason to feel relieved when his doctor told him the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator in his chest was being recalled. The device could come out. What happened next, in January 2009 at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, California, would cost him his life.

During the removal procedure, Stewart developed an internal bleeding complication. The hospital was not prepared to manage it. He had been sedated with the wrong medication and was over-sedated. No surgeon was present when the bleeding began. A surgeon was called in from home but did not arrive in time. By the time staff recognized the complication, it was too late to save him.

Stewart's family retained William Callaham and Michelle Jenni of Wilcoxen Callaham, LLP in Sacramento. The case they built centered not on the complication itself but on the hospital's readiness failures: the wrong sedative, the absence of a surgeon, and the delayed recognition of a known procedural risk.

At trial, Callaham told the jury the case was about 'Enloe's lack of preparation to take care of a patient in the event that complication occurred.' The Stewart family's goal was not only a financial recovery. According to reporting at the time, the widow did not make a settlement demand because she wanted changes to the hospital's practices and protocols, not just a check.

On December 19, 2011, the jury returned a verdict of $3,016,389 against Enloe Medical Center. Enloe CEO Mike Wiltermood said the hospital was surprised and remained confident that staff had performed well. The verdict was the largest malpractice award in Butte County history at that time. It was later recognized among California's top verdicts of 2011 by The Recorder.