It was a tragedy that shocked Los Angeles but not, apparently, the night shift employees of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Medical Center, where Edith Rodriguez died in May, 2007. Today Los Angeles County is paying for their negligence as the Board of Supervisors agreed to pay $3 million to the family of Rodriguez who, two years ago, lay ignored on the hospital's lobby floor, as she writhed in agony for 45 minutes with a perforated bowel. (See L.A. Times-provided video above.)

Rodriguez's death came after years of shocking newspaper exposes about

the hospital and weary, “last chance” warnings from the supervisors; it

also proved to be the nail in the coffin of the facility, which would

close soon afterward.

According to subscriber-based City News

Service, Rodriguez family lawyer Frank Casco Jr. called the settlement

a compromise, given the dire state of the county's economy. (Casco had

originally claimed $45 million in damages.)

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