Medical Malpractice Award of Over $13 Million Trimmed on Appeal

A federal appeals court undid nearly $6.5 million in damages previously granted to a medical malpractice plaintiff on Friday.

Part of the award was “unsupported by the evidence and grossly excessive,” wrote Judge Joshua D. Dunlap of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Lucia Urizar-Mota went to Providence Community Health Centers, a federally funded health center in Rhode Island several times complaining of headaches beginning in 2012. The center allegedly didn’t do any imaging to try to find out what was causing them. Urizar-Mota later had a stroke in 2019 caused by an undiagnosed brain tumor. She ...