A Passaic County jury delivered a $3.1 million verdict on Feb. 1 in a medical malpractice suit, Estate of Dalessandro v. Siegel, claiming diagnosis of Vincent Dalessandro’s gastric cancer was delayed by five months. But the award was reduced by 15 percent, to $2.635 million, based on the chance that the outcome would have been the same even with an earlier diagnosis, as permitted under the 1990 Supreme Court ruling in Scafidi v. Seiler.
Dalessandro saw physician Harvey Siegel in May 2013 after he began suffering anemia. Dalessandro was diagnosed with stomach cancer six months later. The suit claimed that Siegel should have immediately referred the patient to a gastroenterologist for an endoscopy but failed to do so. By the time cancer was diagnosed, it had spread to the patient’s liver. Dalessandro underwent chemotherapy but died two years and five months after his diagnosis. He was 44.
