WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: Family Wins Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Family Wins Wrongful Death Lawsuit

By:  Maggie Wade
maggie@wlbt.net

A Hinds County jury has awarded a local family more than four million dollars in a wrongful death suit. 66 year old Ersel Allen died in 2001 after she was diagnosed with cancer and sent to Hospice Ministries, Inc. In Ridgeland. Her family was told she only had six months to live. She died in five weeks, but an autopsy showed she did not have cancer. One of her doctors is serving time in Louisiana for molesting a 13 year old boy.   

Reitha Sanders says her mother was a wonderful person who was full of life. She says she had a few health problems but nothing life threatening.

"She was all I had left. I had lost my father in 1998, my brother in 1999, and then her in 01."

Her mother 66 year old Ersell Allen was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in 2001.

"Well the coroner called me and said Mrs. Sanders I want you to know that your mother does not have pancreatic cancer. It floored me."

Sanders and her attorney, Dennis Sweet showed us the diagnosis signed by former Jackson physician Dr. William Causey. Causey has made headlines in the last two years after being arrested in Mississippi and Louisiana on child molestation charges. Causey was convicted in Louisiana last year and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was the Medical Director at Hospice Ministries Inc. where Mrs. Allen spent the last few weeks of her life. An autopsy showed his diagnosis was dead wrong. Sweet says...

"She was not terminal. Certified to be terminal, placed in a hospice, overdosed on painkillers. It's just as clear as day."

Mrs. Sanders added.

"I had believed these doctors the whole time and trusted them, put my faith in them, and then it wasn't there."

Sanders filed a lawsuit against Hospice Ministries, Inc. and Dr. Causey. But before filing the suit she went to the Madison County District Attorney's office.  She said her mother was drugged to death with the painkiller Dilaudid.

"It makes me mad that they can do this to somebody."

Sweet hired medical experts, their findings were astonishing.

"Dilaudid is ten times more, seven to ten times more powerful than morphine. He related it to morphine, that she had between, they were giving her between seven and ninety five hundred milligrams of morphine a day. She didn't last long at that level, a day and a half. He said it was enough to treat a battlefield in Vietnam."

Thursday a Hinds County jury ruled in favor of Ersel Allen's family and awarded them 4.5 million dollars, after listening to testimony for the last two weeks. She told us how one witness described her mother's death on the stand.

"It's just like this woman was walking down the street and somebody took a shotgun and shot her."

Sanders says her main goal is to make sure no other family goes through this kind of horrible pain and loss.

Belinda Patterson, the Executive Director of Hospice Ministries, Inc. told us by phone this afternoon, "We disagree with the findings of the jury.  We provide appropriate and compassionate care for our patients and families.  We have had the case carefully reviewed by experts in hospice care and pain management and are convinced that proper care was given, and that Mrs. Allen died of natural causes following an extended illness.  Our attorneys are seeking a new trial and if denied we'll appeal the case to the Mississippi Supreme Court."