According to a court document made on Friday, the family of late actor Bill Paxton has settled a wrongful death case filed against a Los Angeles hospital and the physician who conducted the heart surgery on the actor soon before his death in 2017.
More than four years after the lawsuit was filed, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center will finally have its day in court next month. But attorneys for Paxton’s wife of 30 years, Louise, and their two children, James and Lydia, filed a notice in Los Angeles Superior Court stating they had agreed to settle the matter.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs, Bruce Broillet and Steve Heimberg, released a statement saying, “The case has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties.”
The attorneys have stressed that the details of the agreement are strictly secret. The defendants have not responded promptly to emails requesting comments. A court still needs to sign off on the settlement.
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Actor Bill Paxton, known for his roles in movies like “Apollo 13,” “Titanic,” and “Aliens,” and TV shows like “Big Love,” passed away on February 25.
The cause was a stroke that occurred 11 days after surgery to replace a heart valve and repair aortic damage, according to his death certificate.
The lawsuit filed a year later stated that the surgeon, Dr. Ali Khoynezhad, employed a “high risk and unusual surgical approach” that was unnecessary and that he lacked the experience to conduct, and that he downplayed the procedure’s hazards.
The lawsuit claims that Cedars-Sinai should have known that Khoynezhad, tended to “engage in maverick procedures and demonstrate substandard judgment” and that this led to Paxton’s severe bleeding, cardiogenic shock, and damaged coronary artery.
In court records, the defendants claimed that Paxton and his family knowingly and deliberately underwent the operation despite the risks. The accused denied responsibility for his death.
Throughout the course of the four-year legal battle, the Paxton family made repeated attempts to obtain additional discovery material from the hospital and appeared in court on numerous occasions to argue their case.
Paxton, who was born and reared in Fort Worth, Texas, was among the industry’s busiest actors from the early 1980s until his death, garnering nearly 100 credits, including “Twister” and “Weird Science.” When he passed away, he was playing the lead role in the CBS drama series “Training Day.”