A Pennsylvania jury has handed up an $18 million verdict to a woman who said she suffered from a significantly worse disease outcome as a result of a nurse's failure to diagnose her breast cancer when she initially showed symptoms.

The Chester County jury determined July 22 that defendant Eileen Carpenter had acted negligently by not ordering follow-up tests for plaintiff Kerri Downes after seeing her twice in March 2018 for complaints of a mass in her breast. Nine months after those examinations, Downes returned with further symptoms and was subsequently diagnosed with breast cancer at age 23, according to the plaintiff's pretrial brief.