The family of the late actor Bill Paxton has agreed to settle a wrongful death lawsuit against a Los Angeles hospital and the surgeon who performed his heart surgery shortly before his death in 2017, according to a court filing Friday.
The lawsuit, which was filed against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center more than four years ago, was due to go to trial next month. But attorneys for Paxton’s 30-year-old wife, Louise, and their two children, James and Lydia, filed a notice in Los Angeles Superior Court that they had agreed to a settlement of the case.
“The matter has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties,” plaintiffs’ attorneys Bruce Broillet and Steve Heimberg said in a statement.
The terms are confidential, the attorneys said. E-mails asking for comments from the defendants were not immediately answered. The agreement has yet to be approved by a judge.
Bill Paxton died of a stroke on February 25, 2017, 11 days after undergoing surgery to replace a heart valve and repair damaged aorta. Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
The family of Apollo 13 actor Bill Paxton filed the lawsuit against Dr. Ali Khoynezhad for using an unconventional surgical approach. © MCA/Courtesy Everett Collection
Paxton, who starred in films such as Apollo 13, Titanic and Aliens, as well as television series such as Big Love, died on February 25, 2017.
The cause was a stroke that occurred 11 days after surgery to replace a heart valve and repair damage to an aorta, according to his death certificate.
The lawsuit, filed a year later, alleged that the surgeon, Dr. Ali Khoynezhad used a “high-risk and unconventional surgical approach” that he said was unnecessary and lacked the experience to perform it, and downplayed the risks of the procedure.
The misguided treatment left Paxton with excessive bleeding, cardiogenic shock and an impaired coronary artery, according to the lawsuit, and said Cedars-Sinai knew Khoynezhad tended to “get involved in one-on-one surgeries and display suboptimal judgment.”
The defendants said in court documents that Paxton and his family knew and understood the risks involved with the procedure and voluntarily proceeded with the surgery. The defendants said there was no negligence that led to his death.
The four-year legal battle was marked by frequent attempts by the Paxton family to extract more discovery evidence from the hospital and frequent court hearings on the issue.
Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Paxton was one of the busiest actors in the industry from the early 1980s until his death, racking up nearly 100 credits, including “Twister” and “Weird Science.” When he died, he was starring in the CBS drama series Training Day.