Urizar-Mota v. United States

── Urizar-Mota v. United States ── Case No.: 25-1131 Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Date: March 27, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 25-1131 LUCIA URIZAR-MOTA; SERGIO REYES, individually and p.p.a. of S.R., W.R., and G.R.; DELMY REYES; S.R.; W.R.; G.R., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND [Hon. John J. McConnell, Jr., U.S. District Judge] Before Gelpí, Thompson, and Dunlap, Circuit Judges. Kevin M. Bolan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, with whom Sara Miron Bloom, Acting United States Attorney, and Lauren S. Zurier, Assistant U.S. Attorney, were on brief, for Appellant. Katelyn M. Revens, with whom Amato A. DeLuca and DeLuca, Weizenbaum, Barry & Revens, Ltd., were on brief, for Appellees. March 27, 2026  DUNLAP, Circuit Judge. This appeal involves a negligence claim brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA"), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2671–80, by Plaintiff-Appellee Lucia Urizar-Mota ("Urizar-Mota"), a homemaker and mother of four. Urizar-Mota alleged that her doctors and nurse practitioner at Providence Community Health Center ("PCHC"), a federally funded health center, breached their duty of care by failing to refer her to a neurologist or for neuroimaging that could have detected a slow-growing tumor in the fourth ventricle of her brain. Instead, the tumor -- left undetected -- grew and caused an abnormal buildup of cerebral fluid. During the eventual surgery to resect the tumor, Urizar-Mota suffered cerebellar strokes, resulting in permanent neurological damage that continues to impact her mobility and daily life functions -- including her provision of homemaker services to her husband and children. After motions practice and then a bench trial, the district court awarded Urizar-Mota damages for post-diagnosis medical expenses; pre- and post-diagnosis pain and suffering; and homemaker loss. Further, the court awarded Urizar-Mota's children damages for loss of consortium. This appeal followed. We affirm in part and reverse in part, remanding for further proceedings regarding determination of homemaker damages. - 2 -  I. A. Relevant Facts in the Trial Record Starting in 2006, Urizar-Mota regularly visited PCHC for primary, obstetrical, optometry, and behavioral health care. Over the course of nine different visits to PCHC from November 14, 2012 to June 19, 2019, Urizar-Mota told her primary-care providers that she had been experiencing headaches, but they never referred her to a neurologist or for neuroimaging. They instead diagnosed her with migraines and prescribed Tylenol and migraine medication, even though she reported experiencing domestic abuse and presented symptoms -- headaches that lasted for weeks at a time and changed in pattern -- that, according to medical literature, are inconsistent with migraines and can signal a secondary cause of the headaches. Seven years after Urizar-Mota reported experiencing weeks-long headaches with vomiting at her November 14, 2012 appointment, Urizar-Mota made an appointment at PCHC's express clinic for June 19, 2019, because her headaches had intensified. She was thirty-two years old at the time. When she arrived, she lost consciousness in the parking lot. She was then transported by ambulance to Rhode Island Hospital, where phy