Abortion Procedure Gone Awry Results in Wrongful Death Lawsuit
March 28, 2016
This wrongful death lawsuit resulted in a jury award of $3.9 million for the family of Karna Mongar, who died during a botched abortion in 2009.
Mongar, who died at the age of 41, had placed her trust in Dr. Kermit Gosnell to perform a safe dilation and evacuation abortion at what was then his facility, the Women’s Medical Society, in Philadelphia. Gosnell, now incarcerated, was convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of three babies born alive during other abortion procedures.
The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas in 2011. In May 2011, Gosnell was sentenced to up to five years for an involuntary manslaughter charge relating to Mongar’s death.
According to the statement of claim filed in this case, the Women’s Medical Society staff were not certified to perform medical tasks, yet were in charge of giving Mongar a variety of pain medications on the day of the abortion procedure. The drugs administered on three different occasions throughout a five-hour period were diazepam, meperidine and promethazine.
Once the procedure was completed, staff at the Society called for emergency rescue personnel because Mongar’s respiration had slowed down and she had an extremely low pulse rate. Police had to remove a padlock from the emergency exit to allow first responders to take Mongar to hospital. Although she was alive when she arrived at the hospital and immediately put on life support, she passed away several hours later.
Mongar’s family chose to file a wrongful death, medical negligence lawsuit under the Wrongful Death and Survival Acts of Pennsylvania. The suit was seeking compensation for loss of services to three children, a husband and grandchild, as well as damages.
Filing a wrongful death lawsuit would not bring Mongar back, but it would allow the family to move forward, grieve and send a message to others that what happened to Mongar should never happen to anyone else.
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