Largest award in heart attack death

A jury in Bridgeport awarded a widow and her husband”™s estate $22.5 million in a wrongful death suit, believed the largest such verdict in Connecticut history.

Vita Carlson sued Dr. Robert Goldsmith of the former Stamford Medical Group after her husband, Gary Carlson, died of a heart attack in 1994, claiming Goldsmith missed diagnosing a blocked artery.

Carlson won a $10 million verdict in 2003, but the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled a judge should have allowed a jury to consider whether a second doctor was partly responsible.

In the new verdict, Goldsmith and his insurance carrier Connecticut Medical Insurance Co. (CMIC) are liable for $19.9 million. Glastonbury, Conn.-based CMIC reported $26.4 million in losses and loss expenses in 2006, and total premiums written of $42.5 million.

The second doctor had already settled out of court with Carlson, and so will not have to pay the remaining verdict amount of $2.6 million.