4 new lawsuits allege gynecologist was intoxicated, inappropriate with patients; 37 more coming

Duly Health and Care - the state's largest physician-directed medical group - is facing dozens of new lawsuits alleging one of its former gynecologists behaved badly while treating patients.

Four new lawsuits were announced Wednesday, with 37 more to be filed this week, according to the law firm Hurley McKenna and Mertz, against Duly (formerly known as DuPage Medical Group) and Dr. Vernon T. Cannon, a gynecologist and obstetrician from Arlington Heights.

Including previous filings, the total number of lawsuits filed against Duly and Cannon will be 53, according to Hurley McKenna and Mertz.

The lawsuits take Duly to task for allowing Cannon to continue working, despite complaints by patients and co-workers that alleged he was drunk while working, among other matters.

Duly "put its profits over its patients," attorney Michael Mertz said during a Wednesday news conference.

Terri Hickey, director of external communications for Duly, issued a written statement on Wednesday.

"Duly takes allegations of physician misconduct extremely seriously, including those that have been raised concerning former DuPage Medical Group physician Vernon Cannon," Hickey wrote. "The actions alleged are unacceptable and inconsistent with Duly's mission to provide outstanding patient care and the ethical standards we expect our physicians to uphold.

"Duly vehemently denies that it knowingly allowed Dr. Cannon to engage in misconduct," Hickey added, "and Dr. Cannon has not had any patient contact at Duly since he departed the practice in 2020."

Cannon's lawyer, Robert L. Larsen, said in a statement that the federal patient-privacy law limits what Cannon can say in response to the lawsuits.

"Suffice it to say we deny these allegations and intend to defend all of these claims," Larsen wrote. "When we do, we believe the true facts will come out."

The allegations

Elizabeth Gudella of Chicago says she began seeing Cannon as a patient when she was in high school. But by the time she was in college, his behavior had changed, her lawsuit alleges. He would send her private texts, ask for introductions to her friends, and ask to take her to concerts.

On her last visit, he commented on her tattoos and took off his shirt to show her his, Gudella said at the news conference. He then performed a Pap smear while shirtless and told her, "I can tell you are a party girl and like to have fun by how your cervix has changed," according to the lawsuit.

Another patient, Amy Fuentes of Bloomingdale, said nurses repeatedly had to call for Cannon to come to the delivery room when she was about to deliver a baby at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, and that when he showed up he seemed disoriented and slow - to the point that Fuentes commented, "Is he high?", according to the lawsuit.

The baby was crowning, but nurses told her to hold off on pushing until the doctor could don protective medical gear.

Vesta Eddings of Glendale Heights said Cannon delivered her son and daughter. She said she and her mother noticed his speech was impaired, but she thought it was due to a lisp, noting she has one.

"A Black doctor in Wheaton, being drunk? I gave him the benefit of the doubt," Eddings said Wednesday. Eddings also is Black.

The first suit against Cannon and Duly was filed in 2020. In that suit, a patient accuses Cannon of sexually assaulting her while during a colposcopic examination.

Cannon has not been charged with a crime in connection with any of the allegations claimed in the lawsuits.

Mertz said the lawyers recently learned that in September 2019 nurses at Central DuPage told hospital officials that Cannon was intoxicated and that the hospital immediately told Duly. But Duly, he said, kept Cannon on the job for another month before putting him on leave.

Cannon worked at offices throughout the suburbs, including Bartlett, Naperville, Wheaton and Arlington Heights.

The Illinois Medical Board put Cannon's license on "permanent inactive status" in March of this year due to "unprofessional conduct." Cannon consented, Mertz said.

DuPage Medical Group adopted the name Duly Health and Care in September 2021 after it merged with Iowa-based Quincy Medical Group.