Widow Settles Suit with Easton Doctor
Agreement details are kept secret; she had sought $2 million.
- Publication: The Morning Call
- Date: May 1999
The widow of a Bethlehem man has settled out of court with an Easton radiologist and his employer, all of whom she said failed to identify her husband’s cancer in time to prevent his death at age 42.
Audriienne M. Jacoby filed suit in Northampton County Court in April 1997 against the hospital’s Dr. Kenneth Kramer after her husband, Daniel F. Jacoby, died Nov. 26, 1996.
Also named in the lawsuit was Kramer’s employer, Eastern Radiology Associates, which provides radiology services for the hospital.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
St. Luke’s Hospital, which was also a defendant in the lawsuit, was not included in the settlement, and it’s not clear if it was dropped from the lawsuit. Jacoby said Howard Snethen, an attorney for St. Luke’s, was out of town and not available for comment.
“We’re not saying the hospital or Easton Hospital or St. Luke’s did anything wrong,” she added. “We’re not trying to place blame. We just feel he had to be responsible. If they thought we did something wrong, they wouldn’t have let us out of the suit for no money. They would have made us pay.”
Audrienne Jacoby’s lawyer, Todd Miller of Allentown, said he couldn’t disclose how much money was paid because of the terms of the settlement. Jacoby had sought $2 million, according to court records.
“Our clients were satisfied,” Miller said.
Kramer’s lawyer did not return phone calls seeking comment. Kramer continues to work at the hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The suit said Kramer interpreted a scan from Daniel Jacoby’s CT scan, which was performed in 1986 at Easton Hospital.
The scan for the 32-year-old man showed a small lesion that doctors said later was a sign of cancer. In his radiologist’s report, Kramer marked the lesion on the scan but said there didn’t appear to be any abnormalities.
Jacoby’s cancer wasn’t diagnosed until 1995, by which time lesions in both of his lungs were 4 meters in diameter, the report said. The man lost his left kidney was removed in 1995.
Jacoby believed the cancer might have been cured if the lesion had been treated in 1986.
The trial began April 26 and concluded when the settlement was reached April 29.
