Jury reaches verdict in stroke diagnosis suit involving PeaceHealth, ER doctor
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Jury ruled PeaceHealth and Dr. Weiche were not medically negligent in 2018 case.
- Plaintiffs sought $24 million for stroke misdiagnosis; no damages were awarded.
- Attorneys for Patricia Parker may appeal the verdict after seven-year legal process.
A jury has ruled in favor of a PeaceHealth emergency medicine physician in a medical negligence lawsuit following a multi-week trial and half a day of deliberation in Whatcom County Superior Court.
Ferndale residents Patricia and Carson Parker sued PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation, Dr. Ralph Weiche and Northwest Emergency Physicians in the fall of 2019 over an alleged misdiagnosis that left Patricia Parker with permanent vision loss and a “severe decline” in mobility, according to court documents.
They sought a combined $24 million in damages: $16 million for Patricia Parker and $8 million for her husband for a loss of consortium, which relates to the suffering of a spouse.
Court documents state that Patricia Parker went to the emergency room of PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in April 2018 to seek treatment for a severe headache, confusion and vision loss. She was seen by Weiche, who allegedly misdiagnosed her with a conversion disorder.
The misdiagnosis was due to a failure to conduct comprehensive examinations and tests or consult with a neurology specialist, according to the lawsuit, and led to a delay in treatment for Patricia Parker’s actual condition. She later experienced an occipital stroke.
PeaceHealth itself was not sued, but rather named in the lawsuit as the entity liable for the emergency room nurses whom plaintiffs alleged breached their standard of care. Similarly, Northwest Emergency Physicians was vicariously liable for Weiche.
To rule in favor of the Parkers over PeaceHealth, jurors had to find that the nurses breached the standard of care, the plaintiff was injured and their negligence was the proximate cause of the injury. The same conditions had to be met separately by Weiche for him to be found medically negligent.
The jurors unanimously determined that these conditions were not all met for PeaceHealth and Weiche, meaning neither was medically negligent. They awarded no damages to the plaintiffs.
“We are grateful for the jury’s careful consideration and for their verdict finding that PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center was not negligent in the care provided to Patricia Parker,” PeaceHealth said in a statement to The Herald. “We maintain confidence in the care provided and we appreciate the opportunity to have the facts fully examined in a court of law.”
Weiche’s attorneys deferred to PeaceHealth for comment.
Stephen Hornbuckle, who represented the Parkers along with Jacey Liu, said they are weighing whether to appeal the decision.
“PeaceHealth wronged Patricia Parker by diagnosing her with a psychiatric condition when she had a stroke,” Hornbuckle told The Herald. “The jury was not persuaded but we feel very strongly for our client. If we had been able to submit all the evidence that we had, we think the outcome would have been different.”
What was argued in the trial?
Attorneys representing the Parkers, Weiche and PeaceHealth all gave closing arguments Monday afternoon before jurors began to deliberate the following morning.
Liu summarized the plaintiffs’ case as a “story of betrayal of trust.”
“There is no justification for sending (Patricia Parker) home in a state of neurological emergency,” Liu said.
She said that other experts who reviewed Patricia Parker’s symptoms could see that it was a stroke, though expert witnesses brought by the defense said otherwise. Weiche, who helped develop PeaceHealth’s stroke protocol, testified both before and at the trial that he made the right call given the information he had at the time.
Weiche’s defense attorney, Michele Atkins, argued that it was “only with the benefit of hindsight” that the plaintiffs believed Weiche should have called a “code stroke.” She said in her closing argument that experts brought by the defense all testified that they had never seen a stroke present like Patricia Parker’s did. One even said that he would have failed his boards if he’d diagnosed her with a stroke.
Atkins said there was also still no definitive proof that Patricia Parker experienced a stroke. There was discussion at trial over the possibility of her experiencing a rare neurological disorder called posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, or PRES, which is not always reversible and would not have been helped by the stroke protocol.
Atkins pointed out that Patricia Parker has other “significant medical conditions” that affect her ability to function and said there have not been any economic damages because Patricia Parker was already retired. She also disputed the plaintiffs’ allegations that Weiche didn’t believe Patricia Parker about her symptoms or experience, as he consulted other specialists and nurses and re-examined her multiple times.
The three nurses who interacted with Patricia Parker at the hospital were represented by PeaceHealth, which was not sued as an entity. Ross Taylor, one of PeaceHealth’s defense attorneys, said in his closing argument that it was “unbelievable” to say that the nurses didn’t care, and that nurses are not held to the same standards of emergency room physicians.
“Not everybody can leave the hospital with a positive outcome,” Taylor said.
This story was originally published June 24, 2025 at 4:55 PM.