“ We watched him suffer and begged answers, but none came ” – San Diego Union -Tribune

As a doctor pulled a blue plastic medicine cap of half his right lung, Pamela Gray, 76, had struggled to breathe for a month, insisting for family members and medical suppliers that something was wrong.

But plastic is a bad reflector of the radiographs, which allowed the mortal disc to escape detection and to subject the mother, grandmother and the matriarch of the beloved family to extend the anxiety which led to his death on December 13, 2023.

Erica Cole, Gray’s daughter, said that the timing was particularly tragic because it made him miss what would surely have been one of the most important events in her life, the birth of her third little child.

“My mother could not meet him,” said Cole. “He had just been born and she never left the hospital when he got home.”

Although nothing can ever restore this missed opportunity, California’s law allows Gray to compensate for his pain and suffering. But this right could expire on January 1, 2026, according to the outcome of a very nuanced debate in progress in the State Senate.

The Senate 29 bill, for which Cole testified to Sacramento this week, seeks to extend the right to continue for pain and damages in the name of a deceased loved on the name of his scheduled expiration at the end of the year.

In 1961, the service was withdrawn from the State law “at the request of insurance companies”, according to a written analysis of SB 29, and post -pain and suffering posthumous complaints were prohibited. In 2021, the Senate bill 447 temporarily restored the law, recognizing that the COVVI-19 pandemic had considerably slowed down state courts, which makes it more likely that a person could to have died before their case is settled.

However, SB 447 was a limited offer, only granting complaints from January 1, 2022 to January 1, 2026.

Those who oppose SB 29, who would make posthumous allegations of pain and permanent suffering, say that it was still planned that the law would disappear once the arrears of courts caused by the pandemic have been authorized. State senator John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who sponsored SB 447 and SB 29, says that this is not the case.

“As a legislator who wrote the initial bill and presented it at each hearing in the two houses that year, there has never been any understanding, and this has never been said in a hearing by me or a supporter of the bill that it was,” said Laird in testimony before the senate judicial committee this week.

Extending the rights of parents and other “successors of interest” to claim pain and damages on behalf of deceased relatives has attracted significant support and opposition from competing factions, all having direct interest in the result.

Lawyer associations, unions and consumer protection organizations have lined up to support SB 29, while a long list of health care and doctors and insurance companies are in opposition.

Cole entered this pressure cooker this week, testifying to the elimination of the Sunset clause.

She told her mother’s story, at least THE part which is part of the limited window for individual public testimonies.

“We watched her suffer and begged answers, but none came,” she said.

Paramedical paramedics brought Gray to Scripps La Jolla on November 4, 2023, after falling and broke the ankle at home. She returned there on December 6, suffering from severe respiratory distress.

Computed tomography and x -rays have shown nothing in his lungs that could be responsible for his troubled breathing. Then, a specialist used a probe equipped with a small camera for image the air passages in Gray’s lungs, finally discovering the plastic obstacle.

Amy Martel, lawyer for the Gray family, said that the ceiling seems to have been of a type attached to bottles of intravenous drugs. An examination of Gray medical records, said the lawyer, shows that three different drugs with blue traffic jams were used in the Emergency Service for Scripps La Jolla on November 4, when emergency workers inserted a respiratory tube to restore their breathing.

“We are in the discovery phase to try to understand exactly what happened,” said Martel.

Gray Also spent time in a qualified nursing establishment after being released from the hospital, although Martel said that there was no indication that she had received intravenous drugs outside the hospital.

Scripps refused to discuss the question, since it implies a pending trial. Scripps lawyers have filed a legal response to the legal complaint of Cole and Gray, claiming that “whatever the damage or injuries would have been suffered” by Gray “were directly contributed and caused by the negligence of other people, entities or not”, who “did not show care or care”.

Going so long without the complete use of her two lungs, said Cole, caused prolonged suffering from which she witnessed not only before the plastic cap was removed from the respiratory tract of her mother, but also after her withdraw and her body continued to deteriorate for additional seven days before his death.

“What happened to my mother underlines the need for the Senate Bill 29, which fills a gap that denies justice to families like mine,” said Cole. “I just ask that people have the opportunity to honor their loved ones who are not there to fight for themselves.”

Stuart Thompson, a lawyer representing California Medical Association, argued that the pursuit of the law on pain and suffering can now increase the cost of the medical professional fault that doctors must transport. If the insurance companies calculate that the judgments will be greater, they will, logic will, invoice more for bonuses and that these costs will be passed on to patients through higher invoices.

“The cost of this is reflected in the cost of the judicial system,” said Thompson. “By increasing some of these policies, this increases the costs of health care at the back, it is only a fact.”

Bill’s sponsors have only been the sponsors that, since its adoption, SB 447 has only generated four legal cases, indicating that it has not had much impact. But Thompson said that these four trials were breaking an incomplete image.

“As this committee knows, the vast, large and vast majority of judicial affairs are settled, there is no requirement for declaration on the regulations, and we therefore have no information on how this policy could have increased costs,” said Thompson.

Supporters of the bill note that the law of the State caps the amount of damages that the courts can grant pain and suffering in professional misconduct. Laird also said that most states allow pain and suffer from recovery after death.

“If we do not delete it, in a certain form, or do not extend it for a period, we return to the old system where we will be one of the four states in the United States that if it cannot be tried while you are still alive, these rights will die,” said Laird.

Some may wonder why such damage should be accessible to survivors if the person who suffered them no longer lives. Cole said that no one who had seen a loved one to die in a situation would be confused.

“Looking at a person you love more than anything and who loves you most in the world, and looking at what they were going through, this horrible suffering is really the responsibility, justice and the change we want,” said Cole.

Cole and his brother, Tyson Gray, continued Scripps in the civil court for unjustified death and medical professional fault, affirming their own pain and suffering in addition to one in the name of their mother.

Their lawyer, Martel, said that the possibility of claiming a deceased victim, as well as recent increases from the capped amounts which can be attributed for medical pain and suffering, makes the size of the potential attribution large enough to justify the cost of the dispute, which, according to her, would be around $ 150,000 if the case was judged.

“Now you have a case worth $ 1 million, when in 2020, it would have been $ 250,000,” said Martel. “This has expanded the possibility for lawyers to take these cases and make it worth it for the customer.”

Originally published: April 4, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.