BELLEVILLE – Physician Helen Mussemann, facing a wrongful death suit, moved for substitution of Circuit Judge Christopher Kolker on April 1.
Any party in an Illinois court can move once for substitution without cause if the judge hasn’t made a substantive ruling.
Amy Stehlick sued Mussemann, nurse practitioner Meghan Zeigler, and Grace Women’s Health Care in February.
Stehlick’s lawyer, Joseph Bartholomew of Bruce Cook’s firm in Belleville, wrote that her baby boy died on Feb. 9, 2017.
He wrote that defendants failed to apply the knowledge and skill ordinarily used by a reasonably well qualified provider.
On March 26, Richard Korn of Fox Galvin in St. Louis demanded a jury trial.
He wrote that death resulted from naturally occurring and progressive processes over which reasonable medical care could not with certainty cure or prevent.
He wrote that damages should be barred or reduced in accordance with the likelihood that they would have occurred absent the alleged negligence.
Michael Donelson of Fox Galvin filed the motion for substitution of Kolker.
As of April 22, the docket showed no substitution order.