A lawyer representing John Ritter's family told a jury Monday he would show that doctors caused the actor's death by an improper diagnosis and substandard treatment.
"What you'll hear, ladies and gentleman, is that, they did everything wrong," attorney Moses Lebovits said in his opening statement in the Glendale branch of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Ritter died from a tear in the aorta, known as an aortic dissection, on Sept. 11, 2003, at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.
Ritter's family says he was instead treated for a heart attack and they are suing two doctors for $67 million. The lawsuit follows settlements with the hospital and eight other medical personnel for about $14 million.
At the time of his death, Ritter was 54 and the star of the ABC series "8 Simple Rules … For Dating My Teenage Daughter." The award-winning star of the sitcom "Three's Company" had a varied career, with credits ranging from TV's "The Waltons" to the 1996 movie "Sling Blade."
Amy Yasbeck, Ritter's widow, was tearful during parts of Lebovits' opening statement.
Lebovits claimed that a radiologist, Dr. Matthew Lotysch, failed to give Ritter warning of his purportedly enlarged aorta two years before he died, and that Dr. Joseph Lee, the cardiologist called to Ritter's side the night of his death, failed to order the proper tests to diagnose his condition.
Central to the case is the claim that Lee failed to have a chest X-ray done before treating Ritter for what appeared to be a heart attack.
"Because they didn't get the chest X-ray, they gave him the wrong treatment," said Lebovits.
"He did absolutely nothing to rule out the existence of an aortic dissection," the attorney said.
Had Ritter been treated properly, Lebovits said, the actor would have undergone surgery that night, would have recovered in six-to-eight weeks, and his life expectancy would not have been affected.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he told jurors, "the family lost a wonderful man. Mr. Ritter was an extraordinary father."
At that point, Yasbeck closed her eyes and wiped away tears.
The defense is expected to assert that a body scan of Ritter done two years earlier showed no sign of an enlarged aorta and that the cardiologist was required to act quickly to treat Ritter for what had all signs of a major heart attack.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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