When Hialeah emergency room nurse Marlande Lazard felt a lump in her left breast, she knew she needed to get it checked out.

An ultrasound taken at her hospital showed a mass, but the radiologist couldn't tell for sure if it was cancerous. Lazard asked for a second opinion at the radiology facility where she'd had pregnancy ultrasounds done—but it turned out the technologist never took an image of the mass in her breast, according to court records. Radiologist Dr. James Domesek said he didn't know there was an earlier study he needed to compare with the new ultrasound, and after looking at the film, he found no cancer.

It took nearly one more year and several other doctors' visits for Lazard to be diagnosed with breast cancer, at which point it was Stage 3, according to her lawyer Gary Alan Friedman.