If your loved one has died unexpectedly due to someone else’s carelessness, they should be held accountable. Cleveland wrongful death attorney Chris Mellino welcomes you to contact our office with any questions you may have about a potential claim or Ohio’s statute of limitations.
Call (440) 333-3800 to request a free, no-obligation consultation with our legal team today.
And many more.
Client Lisa L. contacted Cleveland wrongful death attorney Chris Mellino after her 79-year-old mother suffered cardiac tamponade and died following heart valve replacement surgery.
“When I first spoke to Chris, he was very realistic and told me that there was a case, but he said very often, with a case involving somebody who’s elderly, there isn’t much chance of doing anything—at least with a jury.
But the more he looked at medical records, the more he saw that the steps the hospital had taken and the steps that they had omitted were really quite egregious mistakes. We were able to get a settlement, which was more than I expected it to be under the circumstances.” – Lisa L.
Client Cathy S. filed a wrongful death claim after her 78-year-old mother’s surgeon cut into a staghorn kidney stone and caused sepsis. Cathy’s mother was rushed by ambulance to another hospital where she was put on dialysis, but she died of septic shock the day after surgery.
“She should’ve had an antibiotic for this kidney stone because it’s highly infectious. On top of that, he didn’t give her a urine culture, and she had a urinary tract infection that nobody knew about. So that’s two things he did wrong.
“It just makes me sick to my stomach. Those things shouldn’t happen. I know doctors are human, but somebody didn’t do their job, and now my mom is dead. […] I guess doctors don’t say they’re guilty, but, if you offer a settlement, in my eyes, that’s guilty.” – Cathy S.
In 1997, Ohio Lawyers Weekly reported that Chris Mellino and his former partner were awarded the third highest verdict in the state for a wrongful death lawsuit in which the hospital failed to diagnose a patient’s meningitis symptoms.
“The inexperienced residents working that holiday weekend thought he was undergoing alcohol withdrawal even though he had no history of alcohol abuse.” [When senior staff returned to the hospital and correctly diagnosed the patient, it was too late.] “The brain had already herniated and he died later that day.” – Christopher Mellino
In 1999, Mellino and his partner were recognized by Ohio Lawyers Weekly for a $4 million settlement involving the death of a mother and her baby when doctors failed to diagnose and treat her infection. This was one of three settlements that The Mellino Law Firm were recognized for in the publication’s “Largest Settlements of 1999.”
In 2001, Chris and his partner settled a wrongful death lawsuit against Ford Motor Co., et al., for $4 million. According to Ohio Lawyers Weekly‘s “Top 20 Multi-Million Dollar Settlements” issue, a three-year-old boy “was asphyxiated when he was trapped between the rear sofa seat and a bench in a 1996 Ford Econoline conversion van.”
See more case results here.
Our caseload comes from the referrals of other lawyers and satisfied clients or people who find us online.
In 2002, Plain Dealer columnist Sarah Crump reported that Chris Mellino and his former partner set the standard for lawsuit payouts in the state. “In a single year, 1997, they won judgments totaling $30 million,” she wrote.
Chris Mellino’s work has helped change the law in several landmark cases, including Moskovitz v. Mt. Sinai Medical Center (1994) and Watkins v. Cleveland Clinic Foundation (1998). In the latter, he and his previous partner were awarded the largest settlement in the state that year.
Unlike law firms that take every case that walks in their door to settle for the first amount offered, we limit the number of claims we pursue to enable us to give each client the attention they deserve.
Contact us online or by phone at (440) 333-3800 for a complimentary and confidential case evaluation with one of our wrongful death lawyers in Cleveland today.
In most cases, Ohio residents have up to two years from the date of their loved one’s death to file a wrongful death lawsuit. However, this time frame may be longer in cases of medical malpractice, product liability, and other special circumstances.
Ohio law requires wrongful death lawsuits to be filed by the representative of the deceased person’s estate. If the decedent doesn’t have a will that names an executor, the Probate Court will appoint one.
A wrongful death claim is meant to compensate the decedent’s surviving family members for:
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