The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has vacated some of the damages a jury awarded to the parents of a man who died after being misdiagnosed by a Mercy Hospital doctor in 2017.

The high court justices ruled that $2 million in economic damages should not have been awarded to the parents of 25-year-old Peter Smith because there was no evidence that he financially supported them.

A Cumberland County jury in 2023 had ordered Mercy Hospital to pay a total of $6.5 million in damages after finding that the Portland hospital failed to properly diagnose Smith with Lyme disease. He died from complications of Lyme disease after Dr. John Henson treated him twice but failed to properly diagnose him.

The jury agreed that Henson and his employer, Northern Light Mercy Hospital, must pay $1.5 million for Smith’s “conscious pain and suffering” and $2 million in economic damages. They also awarded $3 million for loss of life, though state law at the time of Smith’s death capped that at $500,000.

Mercy Hospital, its parent company and Henson appealed, arguing that the economic damages should not have been awarded. Their appeal did not challenge the determination that Henson was liable for Smith’s death or the other damages awarded by the court.

The appeal called on the court to determine whether Maine’s Wrongful Death Act permits recovery of “pecuniary injuries” even when the decedent, had he lived, would not have been financially supporting the people who would receive damages.

“In the case before us, it is undisputed that neither of the Smiths will suffer pecuniary injury because of their son’s death,” justices wrote in the majority opinion. They said there was no evidence presented during the seven-day trial that Smith would have provided financial support to his parents, Angela Smith and Richard Smith Jr.

Smith’s parents said Henson failed to accurately diagnose Smith during an initial emergency room visit on June 7, 2017, despite documenting clear symptoms of Lyme disease: fever, chills, headaches and an “initial lesion of the rash (that) started on the left inner thigh” that appeared “slightly target shape,” which is a common indicator of the tick-borne illness.

But Henson wrote there was “no sign of Lyme disease” and diagnosed Smith with a basic viral illness and erythema multiforme, a skin disorder also characterized by bull’s-eye-shaped lesions, according to court documents.

Two weeks later, Smith returned to the ER, still troubled by the rash and worsening aches and chills. Henson added “hives” to his diagnosis.

On June 25, 2017, Smith called an ambulance because he felt like he was going to faint, according to the complaint. He was experiencing heart block and joint pain. Hospital staff diagnosed him with Lyme disease and Lyme carditis, which occurs when Lyme disease bacteria enter the heart tissue and interfere with the heartbeat.

Smith, who had recently moved to Maine to work as an audit associate while pursuing his Certified Public Accountant license, died a week later.