The comedian’s death came days after she stopped breathing after undergoing a routine endoscopy at Yorkville Endoscopy in Manhattan. Daughter Melissa Rivers filed a lawsuit in 2015 in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleging that the doctors performed unauthorized medical procedures, as they were caught taking a selfie with the Fashion Police star while she was under anesthesia.
Melissa Rivers’ attorneys Ben Rubinowitz and Jeff Bloom did not disclose the amount of the May 2016 settlement, but said they wanted to “make certain that the focus of this horrific incident remains on improved patient care and the legacy of Joan Rivers,” according to the Associated Press. The lawsuit alleged that doctors at the clinic mishandled Rivers’ procedure by performing a laryngoscopy on her vocal cords without consent, instead of an endoscopy. According to the AP, the suit claimed that when an anesthesiologist expressed concern over what the procedure would do to her ability to breathe, she was told that she was being “paranoid.” The autopsy revealed that Rivers’ official cause of death was due to brain damage from lack of oxygen.
Read Melissa Rivers’ full statement below:
The lawsuit concerning my mother’s death has been settled. In accepting this settlement, I am able to put the legal aspects of my mother’s death behind me and ensure that those culpable for her death have accepted responsibility for their actions quickly and without equivocation. Moving forward, my focus will be to ensure that no one ever has to go through what my mother, Cooper and I went through and I will work towards ensuring higher safety standards in out-patient surgical clinics. I want to express my personal gratitude to my legal team for their wise counsel and prompt resolution of this case.
The clinic responded to the settlement by telling the AP that it’s committed to providing quality and compassionate health care services, and adding that both sides agreed to a settlement to avoid litigation.
With the death of Joan Rivers at 81, we lost one more icon in a dwindling breed: the comedian who does not seek the good opinion of the powerful media and entertainment elite. Just two months before her death, Rivers mocked President Obama as “gay” and First Lady Michelle Obama as a “tranny,” and caught hell for it from the likes of the Huffington Post. Those servants to power chided: “Rivers took her ‘jokes’ too far yet again the week of her death, when she hurled a trans slur at the first lady.”
Now Rivers is gone and outside of a handful of comedic insurgents like Don Rickles, Dennis Miller, and Adam Carolla, we’re stuck with Politically Correct Palace Guards like Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Lena Dunham, Ricky Gervais, the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” and pretty much everyone associated with Funny or Die — all big government-loving cowards desperate to fit into a comedic class that believes political correctness is a virtue and those who buck it should be held up to ridicule. Today’s comedic class isn’t about pushing the boundaries of free speech towards sacred cows, they are Speech Enforcers using their talents and the power of ridicule to marginalize and silence those who do not conform to the left’s standards of accepted speech.
Joan Rivers attacked everyone — from Michelle Obama to Sarah Palin. Whether you enjoyed her style or not, it was nice knowing that someone — someone! — was out there with the courage to invite the kind of outrage that causes a Huffington Post to accuse you of going too far. Pissing off Christians is a career-enhancer. Pissing off the Left and GLAAD is a career killer. Now Rivers is gone, and any up-and-comer who wanted to take her place, who dared call Michelle Obama a “tranny” during open-mic night at the legendary Comedy Store, would be booed off the stage and blacklisted until she publicly recanted.(Breitbart)
