Jurors Award Aneurysm Victim’s Kin $1.67 Million : Courts: They rule that Karen Donaldson received negligent care from Simi Valley Hospital physician after she complained of seizures in 1990.

A Ventura County jury Thursday found that a 36-year-old woman who died of an aneurysm had received negligent care from a doctor at Simi Valley Hospital and awarded $1.67 million to her family.

Karen Donaldson, a preschool teacher, had gone to the hospital in the middle of the night on Nov. 11, 1990, with complaints that she was experiencing seizures.

But Dr. Richard Wagner, an emergency room physician on duty, sent her home without performing any tests on her condition, an attorney for the woman’s family said.

She died 33 days later of the aneurysm, said attorney Jim Pagliuso of Glendale.

“He was just busy that night and instead of attending to the lady, he just recommended that she see a private medical doctor the next day,” Pagliuso said.

Neither Wagner nor his attorney, Robert D. Wilkinson of Fresno, could be reached for comment.

Pagliuso argued to the jury that Wagner should have performed a CAT scan on the woman.

The doctor Donaldson visited the next day was a family practitioner and was unable to detect her problem, he said.

The medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor was filed by Donaldson’s husband, Terry, and her sons, Brent, 17, and Matthew, 13.

The two-week trial was presided over by retired Judge Albert T. Blanford, a former Ventura County Municipal Court judge.

Terry Donaldson sobbed as the verdicts were read Thursday.

The jury found that Donaldson received negligent care from Wagner, which contributed to her death.

In all, the jury awarded the family $1,665,616.

Court officials said the verdict included $700,000 for loss of future domestic services and $391,000 for loss of future earnings.

On the night Donaldson had the seizure, neither she nor Terry Donaldson had medical insurance. She had recently begun her job as a teacher at Woodland Village School in Agoura. Her husband had just begun a job as a clerk with a shipping company.

“They were each in new positions and their insurance hadn’t kicked in,” Pagliuso said. He did not say if he thought that that contributed to the decision not to perform tests on Donaldson the night she had the seizure.

During the trial, a pathologist at the hospital who performed the autopsy ruled that Donaldson died from a blood-vessel deformity--and not an aneurysm, according to Pagliuso.

“The jury believed that the pathologist came up with a diagnosis that was off the wall,” Pagliuso said.

The lawyer urged people to demand that the county coroner’s office perform autopsies on loved ones who die in hospitals, rather than the hospital’s staff.

“If you ever have a relative die in a hospital, have the county coroner do the autopsy so that the person doing it isn’t a member of the same medical staff as the doctor you hold accountable for the death,” he said.