Doctor's Negligence Caused Legal Abortion Death in Wisconsin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; May 4, 2001

Milwaukee, WI -- A doctor's negligence caused the death of a Wisconsin
high school teacher who was poisoned during an abortion at a Milwaukee
hospital, a jury found Friday.

However, because the estate of Linda Boom was late in filing its lawsuit
against Daniel Gilman, who did the abortion, and Sinai Samaritan Medical
Center, Gilman was dismissed as a defendant in the suit and is not liable
for any of the $2.3 million the jury felt would fairly compensate Boom's
family.

And neither is the hospital liable. The jury found Sinai Samaritan was not
negligent when, as the suit claimed, chemicals that should have been
injected into Boom's womb to abort her unborn child were instead injected
into her bloodstream and eventually reached her heart.

"That's the way the law works," Randal Arnold, attorney for Sinai
Samaritan Medical Center, said Friday evening. "If I'm employed by someone
and I'm acting as their agent and injure someone through negligence, that
person can sue my employer because I'm acting as agent for my employer,"
Arnold explained.

"Doctor Gilman is an independent physician, not an employee of the
hospital," he said. "Therefore, the hospital is not responsible for his
conduct."

Boom, 35, died Sept. 22, 1995, after having undergone an "amnioinfusion
termination of pregnancy." The abortion involves the injection of
chemicals into the womb.

In the suit against the hospital and the Wisconsin Patients Compensation
Fund by Boom's husband, Dennis, attorney Patrick Dunphy of Brookfield
contended an ultrasound was not used before injecting the chemicals and
they were injected into Boom's bloodstream.

During the abortion, Gilman was supervising Karen S. Watson, a fourth-year
resident in training at the time and now an obstetrician/gynecologist in
Milwaukee. Watson was not named as a defendant; moreover, the jury found
specifically that Watson, a Sinai Samaritan employee at the time, was not
negligent in her care and treatment of Boom.

Watson injected the first chemicals into Boom, who began to suffer pain,
Dunphy said during the trial, quoting medical notes. The abortion was then
taken over by Gilman, who had performed more than 100 abortions.

Gilman had initially been named as a defendant but was dismissed from the
lawsuit because the claim was filed too late, according to court records.

However, the jury in Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Stanley Miller's
courtroom determined that Gilman was negligent with respect to the lack of
care and treatment he provided Boom and that his negligence was the cause
of her death.

The jury said that $500,000 would "fairly and reasonably" compensate
Boom's estate for pain, suffering and disability and $1.85 million would
fairly and reasonably compensate her husband for loss of companionship and
"pecuniary loss of value and loss of household services."

But it's an amount that cannot be recovered because Gilman had been
dismissed as a defendant and the only remaining defendant in the case,
Sinai Samaritan, was found not to be negligent, said Marquette University
Law School Dean Howard Eisenberg.

"The jury is asked if a defendant is negligent and then asked how much
would it take to compensate the plaintiff," Eisenberg said Friday evening.
"They're unrelated questions, so in this case, it's not a compensable
amount even though the plaintiff has still suffered a loss.

"The jury does not know the legal consequences of their answers," he said.
"The judge applies the answers to the law, which in this case equals no
recovery."

Dunphy, the attorney for Dennis Boom, could not be reached for comment
after the verdict.

Arnold, the attorney for Sinai Samaritan, said the hospital and Watson
were gratified by the conclusion the jury reached but Boom's death was
still a tragedy. "A tragedy like this is not only the nightmare of every
patient but the nightmare of every physician," Arnold said.

Linda Boom, a mathematics teacher, and Dennis Boom, a science teacher, met
at Cedarburg High School in 1983 and married in 1993.

In June 1995, the couple learned that Linda had become pregnant, but three
months later, she decided to get an abortion after learning the unborn
child had Down syndrome, Dunphy previously had said.

When contacted Friday evening, Gilman, whom the jury blamed for Boom's
death, had no comment.