Sommers Schwartz attorney Matthew Turner obtained a $1.86 million medical malpractice settlement on behalf of the estate of a man who died three weeks after undergoing elective surgery. The complaint alleged that the night before the scheduled procedure, the patient had a 102.4-degree fever, developed crackles in both lungs, had a chest x-ray that showed extensive infiltrates in both lungs, and demonstrated elevated respiratory and heart rates. Despite these risks and when a delay would have posed no danger to the patient, the defendant anesthesiologist cleared the man for surgery and placed him under anesthesia with positive pressure ventilation. Post-operatively, the patient suffered severe respiratory distress and was intubated with a diagnosis of pneumonia. He went on to develop sepsis, Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), and multi-organ system failure before dying 21 days later.