The widow of late actor John Ritter is still battling doctors for failing to diagnose a congenital heart defect which she believes led to her husband's death The star's wife Amy Yasbeck filed a lawsuit against doctors at the Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, California, claiming her husband was misdiagnosed twice. Yasbeck and her five children already settled for $12.5 million (£6.5 million) from the Californian hospital where Ritter died - but now they are still battling three New York doctors who have submitted subpoenas arguing that the hospital's medics were not negligent. The doctors' lawyers state that Ritter was failed to make an appointment with a cardiologist three years before his death - claims which the New York doctors have subpoenaed. Yasbeck claims that if it wasn't for a missed X-ray procedure, which was never performed, Ritter would have survived. The actor was filming 8 Simple Rules when he was rushed to hospital (11Sep03) with vomiting and chest pains - and died hours after entering the emergency room. But only when the symptoms became more violent, did the doctors discover the cause of the pain - an aortic dissection.
The case against the doctors John David Friedman and Matthew Lotysch will go to trial in January (08).