On March 15, 2012, a jury returned a verdict on behalf of Rockford Memorial Hospital. Plaintiff claimed that the Hospital had failed to maintain the patient’s NPO status. The originally scheduled afternoon surgery was moved to the morning and the patient aspirated material upon induction of anesthesia. Lead trial counsel, David Faulkner and Brandi Chudoba, successfully argued that the patient had been kept NPO for over eight hours and that the aspirated material was the result of the delayed gastric emptying of a meal served ten hours before surgery. The jury answered special interrogatories finding for the Hospital on liability and the causation defense that the patient’s later respiratory death was due to an idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis unrelated to the aspiration.