Nichelle Nichols Estate To Receive Fraction Of $13M Lawsuit

The world of Black entertainment truly lost an icon with the death of Star Trek star Nichelle Nichols on July 30, 2022.

Even at 89 years old, the beloved actress was giving herself a proper send-off from Hollywood with the Kickstarter-funded, Trekkie-inspired standalone project, Renegades: Ominara. It was merely days prior to her death that she teased a still from the film on Instagram, but heart disease would unfortunately thwart those plans after a hospital visit soon after resulted in her death due to medical negligence.

Now, following the triumph of her estate winning its wrongful death lawsuit against Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, New Mexico, it appears their fight is entering a second round after a state law substantially limits the family to only collect $400,000 of the $13 million awarded in total.

….what the Trek?!

RELATED: Nichelle Nichols Didn’t Leave Star Trek Thanks To Dr. King

In a report from KOAT Action 7 News (seen above), Nichols son and estate representative Kyle Johnson spoke on the details of their second lawsuit and why he believes his mother would still be alive today if she had been transferred to a better facility. As the full lawsuit states, Nichols visited Gila after feeling ill with hopes of getting proper medical care given her preexisting heart disease. Through a series of oversights, including failure to have safe discharge protocols, treatment from unqualified medical providers and lack of either a cardiac or pulmonary consultation, she instead died just hours after being released from the hospital. The malpractice lawsuit followed a year later.

More on the next phase of their battle below, via KOAT 7:

“The Nichols family has filed another lawsuit against Health Tech Management Services, the former company that managed Gila Medical Center during Nichols’ brief stay. They allege cost-saving measures led to poor medical services.

‘So the for-profit management company that was brought in by the county commissioners to run the regional did a horrible job, right. They slashed staff. They took out enormous management fees from the hospital. They had CEOs. They rotated every three months,’ Johnson said.”

Speaking on behalf of the estate, Johnson made it clear that it’s not about the monetary gain or New Mexico’s Tort Claims Act for only allowing a maximum award of $400,000 in claims against hospitals owned by governmental agencies. Instead, it’s about stopping this from ever happening again, as he told the outlet, “It can’t be compensated for. And I don’t feel that that was the objective here. I think accountability is the primary objective.”

While we completely understand his valiant approach to the matter, we also think the estate should receive the full amount of $13 million. We’ll be praying to the stars for a positive update in the meantime.

Estate Of Nichelle Nichols To Receive Fraction Of $13M Lawsuit was originally published on blackamericaweb.com