Published: July 14, 2008 06:45 pm      

NORTH TONAWANDA: Malpractice award is more than $9 million

2004 death of 33-year-old partially attributed to negligence

More than $9 million awarded by a Niagara County jury, who deemed the death of a 33-year-old North Tonawanda woman due to negligence on the part of her physician, is perhaps the largest such figure in the court’s history.

Malpractice insurance is expected to cover court-ordered payments to the husband and two children of Suzanne E. Crane, whose 2004 death is being partially attributed to negligence on the part of a famed Western New York surgeon with almost 50 years experience, Nancy J. Stubbe.

The total, $9,057,000, includes retroactive damages and other “pecuniary” compensation for the period of time following Crane’s death to the present, and into the future, according to documents filed with the Niagara County clerk.

Of 10 separate allocations set for distribution among the three family members listed in the suit and Crane’s estate, the largest single figure is to her husband, Raymond Crane, for future losses in the amount of $3,030,160.00.

The jury decided that figure would compensate him for a period of time up to 10 years from the time the verdict was handed up June 30. An additional $1 million was included to cover the period between his wife’s death and the verdict being reached.

An additional $1,027,800.00 was split between funeral expenses, pain and suffering and loss of services. Another $4 million in total covers each of the two children in equal parts for between the next 17 to 20 years.

Stubbe, 77, was previously nominated by Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds as a “local legend of medicine.” A biography posted on the Web at that time includes statements from Stubbe.

She earned her M.D. from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1958.

In 1963, information from www.nlm.nih.gov states she became a member of the Buffalo Medical Center. Four years later she became clinical instructor, and years later clinical assistant professor, at SUNY Buffalo’s School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

At that time she was also a fellow with the American College of Surgeons and in 1978 began a two-year tenure as president of the Erie County chapter of the American Cancer Society.

Over the course of the next 24 years, she was named Woman Physician of the year, 2000, by Kaleida Health System, co-founded the Acute Crisis Committee at Erie County Medical Society and was honored several times by area colleges for her contributions to local medicine.