Jury rules against doctor, in favor of family of Excel victim who died of opioids
A jury has ruled in favor of the family of a man who fatally overdosed on drugs prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder after he was injured in the Excel Industries mass shooting.
The Sedgwick County jury decided earlier this month on a $2.57 million ruling in favor of Nicholas Moon’s family, although his family could receive far less than that.
Moon was 30 when he died of an overdose in December 2017, after being prescribed drugs by Dr. Elsie Steelberg, a former Wichita psychiatrist who he started to see after being shot at Excel in 2016. The mass shooting in Hesston left three people dead and 14 wounded.
Moon left behind a wife and pre-teen son.
The jury ruled that Moon was 45% responsible for the overdose, Steelberg was 40% responsible and her practice 15%, meaning Moon’s family could be paid $1.03 million from Steelberg and possibly $386,250 from her practice, minus any attorney fees.
Nothing has been paid yet. Steelberg’s attorney, Don Gribble, said he isn’t sure the portion from her practice can be paid since it was dissolved before the trial and has no large assets. Steelberg is in her 80s and retired; her license is inactive.
Gribble hasn’t decided whether to appeal the court decision.
Chris Schnieders, the Moon family attorney, said he thinks the award amount is the largest in the county for an opioid-related death.
“The jury was able to see through the stigma of the psychiatric injuries suffered by Nick Moon and focus on the relentless escalation of the aggressive regimen of opioids and benzodiazepines that Dr. Steelberg wrote for Nick,” Schnieders said in a news release. “We are hopeful that this result serves as a warning that patients need to be optimized on non-opioid and controlled substances before ever thinking of trying these dangerous and addictive drugs.”
Moon worked as a painter at Excel before being shot just below the right knee during the mass shooting at the factory. He had multiple surgeries because of the shooting but had weaned off opioids from the surgeries before he started to see Steelberg in August 2016, Schnieders said.
An autopsy showed Moon had far more prescription drugs in his system than had been prescribed. Schnieders, in a phone interview, said Steelberg continued to prescribe opioids and benzodiazepines — a combination the National Institute of Drug Abuse says increases the risk of overdose — even after signs of abuse.
Overwriting opioid prescriptions is blamed for starting the opioid epidemic, which claimed roughly 500,000 lives in 20 years, according to the CDC.President Donald Trump deemed the opioid crisis a public health emergency on Oct. 26, 2017. Moon died Dec. 10, 2017.
Steelberg practiced medicine for more than 50 years, first in anesthesiology and then in psychiatry. Gribble said only 3% of her patients were on chronic pain medications.
“Her career was an exemplary one,” he said in an email.
Steelberg was not able to testify at the trial, Schnieders said. Gribble said Steelberg has had a stroke and suffered multiple bone fractures from falls.
Moon, who used a cane periodically, had been rehabbing with plans to go back to work before his death.
“We are happy we could get justice for the Moons given the fact that he left a wife and son behind,” Schnieders said. “There’s nothing that could change what happened and they would obviously prefer to have Nick.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 4:25 AM.