John Ritter Wrongful Death Claim Denied

The John Ritter Wrongful Death Case

On September 11, 2003 John Ritter suddenly collapsed on the set of his show 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he later died. It was later discovered that Ritter's death was due to a torn aorta. Amy Yasbeck, Ritter's widow, later brought on a $67 million wrongful death suit. The suit named Dr. Matthew Lotysch and Dr. Joseph Lee as co-defendants.

Under the claim, Yasbeck stated that Dr. Lotysch, a radiologist, was negligent regarding a body scan he performed on Ritter in 2003. Yasbeck and the Ritter children claimed that Dr. Lotysch should have detected the problem with the aorta at that time. Dr. Lee, also named in the lawsuit, was the cardiologist that treated Ritter after his collapse. Yasbeck believed that Dr. Lee was negligent when treating the actor that night.

The Defense

Dr. Lotysch and the radiologists rebuffed Yasbeck's claim that he should have detected the abnormalities in Ritter's aorta at the time of his body scan in 2003 by simply stating that the scan did not show that there was a problem with Ritter's aorta at the time.

The cardiologist, Dr. Lee, claimed that by the time he was called into the emergency room to assist in Ritter's treatment after he collapsed, the actor was already "crashing" and there was basically nothing he could do to help him at that point.

The Verdict

The jury ultimately sided with doctors Lee and Lotysch, clearing both the doctors of any wrong doing and dismissing the Ritter family's wrongful death case.