Pulmonary embolism misdiagnosis lawsuits result in settlements and verdicts ranging from under $1 million to over $9 million, depending on severity, jurisdiction, and whether the patient died. Recent major cases show the scale: a 22-year-old in Maryland won a $7.25 million verdict after his death from untreated PE, with $3 million awarded to his father and $3.75 million to his mother; a woman in Philadelphia obtained a $7.7 million verdict against Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for failure to diagnose PE; and a Chicago case resulted in a $9 million settlement that included punitive damages. These figures reflect the serious consequences of misdiagnosis—PE is the third leading cause of cardiovascular death, with a 30% mortality rate when untreated.
The amount you can sue for in a PE misdiagnosis case depends on multiple factors: whether the patient survived or died, the extent of medical treatment required after the error was discovered, the jurisdiction where the case is filed, and whether the defendant’s conduct was grossly negligent. Economic damages cover additional medical bills and lost wages; non-economic damages compensate for pain and suffering, emotional trauma, and loss of consortium. In cases of wrongful death, surviving family members split awards that can exceed $7 million when hospitals failed to perform basic diagnostic tests or continue necessary anticoagulation therapy.
Table of Contents
- What Are Typical Verdicts and Settlements for PE Misdiagnosis?
- What Types of Damages Can You Recover?
- How Common Is PE Misdiagnosis in Healthcare Settings?
- What Factors Determine the Final Award Amount?
- What Makes These Cases Difficult to Win?
- Wrongful Death Awards Versus Survival Claims
- Geographic Variation in PE Misdiagnosis Awards
What Are Typical Verdicts and Settlements for PE Misdiagnosis?
Verdict amounts in pulmonary embolism misdiagnosis cases cluster in several ranges, with fatal outcomes commanding the highest awards. The $7.25 million Maryland verdict (January 2025) broke down as $500,000 for the decedent’s pain and suffering before death, with the remaining $6.75 million split as wrongful death damages to his parents. The $9 million Chicago settlement and $7.7 million Philadelphia verdict both involved patient deaths from delayed diagnosis.
Non-fatal misdiagnosis cases tend to recover less: a Washington case resulted in a $3.1 million verdict in 2018 for a 66-year-old who died 16 hours after the hospital failed to perform diagnostic tests, while an Illinois jury awarded $3 million in November 2017 to the family of a 52-year-old who died from PE one month after tendon repair surgery. Settlements below $2 million are more common when the patient survives the misdiagnosis but requires substantial additional treatment. A recovery of $1.91 million went to a plaintiff whose hospital failed to perform PE risk assessment; another case settled for $1.5 million involving untreated pulmonary embolism; and an $835,000 recovery was split between $235,000 from one defendant doctor and $600,000 from the hospital. The difference between these amounts and the multi-million-dollar verdicts often depends on whether the misdiagnosis led to death, the patient’s age at the time of error, and how quickly the correct diagnosis was made after the initial failure.
What Types of Damages Can You Recover?
Damages in PE misdiagnosis lawsuits fall into two broad categories: economic and non-economic. Economic damages include all quantifiable losses—additional hospital bills for treating the blood clot after delayed diagnosis, emergency procedures like thrombolysis or vena cava filter placement, extended ICU stays, lost wages during recovery, and ongoing anticoagulation therapy costs. In the Maryland verdict example, the $500,000 awarded for the decedent’s pain and suffering was entirely separate from the wrongful death damages awarded to his parents, reflecting the law’s recognition that the patient himself experienced chest pain and shortness of breath before his death.
Non-economic damages compensate for intangible harms: the physical pain and suffering experienced between the misdiagnosis and correct diagnosis, emotional distress, loss of life’s enjoyment, and in wrongful death cases, the family’s loss of the deceased’s companionship and support. Punitive damages—awarded beyond compensatory damages—are available when the defendant’s conduct was especially egregious, as in the $9 million Chicago settlement where punitive damages were included. However, not all states recognize punitive damages equally; some cap them or allow them only in extreme cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct. California caps non-economic damages at $350,000 and Texas at $250,000 per defendant, while states without caps like New York, Illinois, and Connecticut report substantially higher average payouts for comparable cases.
How Common Is PE Misdiagnosis in Healthcare Settings?
Pulmonary embolism misdiagnosis is alarmingly frequent across different care environments. In emergency departments, 27.5% of PE cases are initially misdiagnosed—meaning one in every four patients presenting with a blood clot receives an incorrect diagnosis on their first encounter. The problem worsens in inpatient hospital settings, where the misdiagnosis rate jumps to 53.6%, more than double the ED rate.
For the most critically ill patients in ICUs, the misdiagnosis rate ranges from 30% to 40%, a particularly dangerous setting because these patients are already unstable and a delayed PE diagnosis can prove immediately fatal. These misdiagnosis rates occur despite PE being relatively common: out of 186 million total emergency department visits over an 8-year period, PE was identified in 531,968 cases (0.29% of all ED encounters). The diagnostic frequency has been slowly rising—from 0.20% of ED visits in 2016 to a peak of 0.35% in 2021—but the rate of misdiagnosis has not correspondingly declined. The consistency of these high misdiagnosis rates across multiple large patient populations suggests systemic problems: physicians failing to order appropriate tests (D-dimer, CT pulmonary angiography), dismissing patient symptoms as anxiety or less serious conditions, or overlooking classic risk factors like recent surgery, immobility, or active cancer.
What Factors Determine the Final Award Amount?
The size of a PE misdiagnosis award depends on several concrete factors that juries and settlement negotiators weigh systematically. Patient age is significant: a 22-year-old’s wrongful death generates higher damages than a 75-year-old’s because of lost years of life and earning potential. The time between misdiagnosis and correct diagnosis matters—a patient misdiagnosed for 16 hours before dying generates different liability than one diagnosed and treated within hours. The specific medical negligence also influences awards: failing to order any diagnostic tests despite clear symptoms generates higher damages than ordering a test but misreading results.
Jurisdiction heavily influences awards because juries in different states award differently, and some states cap damages. New York, Illinois, and Connecticut juries tend to award substantially more than juries in California or Texas, where non-economic damages are capped. A death resulting from a massive PE carries higher awards than a smaller PE that was eventually treated without permanent organ damage. Whether the defendant was a large institutional hospital or a solo practitioner affects settlement dynamics and jurors’ attitudes. Additionally, whether the case involves obvious negligence (failing to perform D-dimer screening despite textbook symptoms) versus arguable clinical judgment (interpreting imaging ambiguously) will shape both jury verdicts and settlement negotiations.
What Makes These Cases Difficult to Win?
Winning a PE misdiagnosis case requires proving that the standard of care was violated and that this violation caused harm. The medical causation element can be complex: a patient with PE who dies may have had other contributing conditions, and the defense will argue that even with prompt diagnosis, outcomes would have been similar. Hospitals and physicians invest substantial resources in defending these cases, and insurance companies resist paying large settlements because they worry about encouraging future claims. Another challenge is the initial misdiagnosis itself—PE symptoms (chest pain, shortness of breath, tachycardia) overlap with many other serious conditions like heart attack, pneumonia, and anxiety, making it harder to prove the physician’s failure was unreasonable rather than merely an honest diagnostic error.
The 27.5% misdiagnosis rate in emergency departments, while high, can actually work against plaintiffs because defense attorneys will argue that misdiagnosis is common and not per se negligent. Geographic location matters: filing in a state with damage caps means your maximum recovery is predetermined, while filing in a state allowing unlimited punitive damages opens different settlement possibilities. Statute of limitations rules vary by state—some require filing within one year of discovering the misdiagnosis, others allow longer periods—and missing a deadline defeats even the strongest case. The cost of pursuing these cases to trial is substantial, with expert witness fees, medical record review, and litigation expenses often totaling $100,000 or more.
Wrongful Death Awards Versus Survival Claims
When a patient dies from PE that was misdiagnosed, surviving family members pursue wrongful death claims that are typically larger than survival claims from patients who lived. The $7.25 million Maryland verdict exemplifies this: the $500,000 for the decedent’s pain and suffering before death went to his estate, while the remaining $6.75 million—split as $3 million to his father and $3.75 million to his mother—was awarded for their loss. Each state’s wrongful death statute determines which relatives can recover and how damages are split.
If a patient dies intestate (without a will) and leaves a spouse and two adult children, the $5 million verdict recovered in another case might be split as $2.5 million to the spouse and $1.25 million to each child, or according to that state’s intestacy rules. Survival claims, brought when the patient lives but sustained injuries, typically recover less because the damages are limited to medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering during the period between misdiagnosis and correct diagnosis. A patient who was misdiagnosed for three weeks, received anticoagulation therapy afterward, and recovered fully will recover far less than a patient who nearly died or now requires lifelong anticoagulation and has permanent leg swelling (post-thrombotic syndrome). The $1.91 million verdict for failure to perform PE risk assessment and the $1.5 million settlement for untreated PE likely involved either permanent disability or near-death experiences that left lasting physical consequences.
Geographic Variation in PE Misdiagnosis Awards
The state where you file your case significantly impacts your potential recovery because damage award amounts vary by jurisdiction and some states impose statutory caps. States without damage caps on non-economic damages—including New York, Illinois, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania—consistently report higher average malpractice payouts than states with caps. New York juries have returned several large PE misdiagnosis verdicts; Illinois saw the $9 million settlement and the $3 million jury award; Pennsylvania had the $7.7 million verdict against Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. These states’ lack of damage caps means a jury can award whatever it finds justified, and there’s no legislative ceiling on pain and suffering compensation.
By contrast, California caps non-economic damages at $350,000 per defendant and Texas at $250,000, creating automatic ceilings that apply regardless of injury severity. A patient who would receive $5 million in New York for wrongful death from PE misdiagnosis cannot receive more than the economic damages (medical bills, lost wages) plus $350,000 in non-economic damages in California. This geographic disparity means a PE misdiagnosis case with identical facts—same age patient, same hospital negligence, same death—generates vastly different awards depending on location. Medical malpractice statistics show that while 9,859 malpractice payment reports were filed nationally in 2025 totaling $4.56 billion (an average of $463,000 per report), cases in uncapped states consistently exceed this average while capped states remain at or below it.