Woman settles wrongful death suit

A Lee County woman who said her husband died after his rectal cancer was diagnosed too late has settled her wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. government.

Elsie M. Stowell, 66, of Fort Myers, and her husband, James B. Stowell, 71, filed a negligence lawsuit in September 2004 in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers against the federal government and Peter Lautenbach, D.O., of Fort Myers. After James Stowell’s death Dec. 6, 2004, his wife added a wrongful death count against them, saying Lautenbach and staff at the Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Fort Myers didn’t detect her husband’s cancer while performing colorectal cancer screenings for years.

Court records filed Wednesday showed that Stowell has settled with the government, but did not disclose terms of the settlement. She was suing for $5 million.

Messages were left for Assistant U.S. Attorney Pamela Marsh, and for Stowell’s attorneys, William Turner Jr. and Joseph Callahan, but they were unavailable for comment.

James Stowell was a patient of Lautenbach at Riverside Family Practice in Fort Myers. Lautenbach was dismissed from the lawsuit in October 2005. The couple’s suit said that James Stowell was diagnosed by a separate doctor with terminal rectal cancer after it had metastasized into the right portion of his liver. This doctor, who was not named in the lawsuit, detected the mass in August 2002 after James Stowell suffered abdominal pain, rectal bleeding and constipation.

The clinic, at 3033 Winkler Extension, is the region’s only Veterans Affairs clinic.