Legal extortion?-----Neil Armstrong’s Death, and a Stormy, Secret $6 Million Settlement - The New York Times

Neil Armstrong’s Death, and a Stormy, Secret $6 Million Settlement - The New York Times
"When Neil Armstrong died in a Cincinnati hospital two weeks after undergoing heart surgery in 2012, his family released a touching tribute addressing the astronaut’s millions of admirers around the globe.
...But in private, the family’s reaction to his death at 82 was far stormier.
His two sons contended that incompetent post-surgical care at Mercy Health — Fairfield Hospital had cost Mr. Armstrong his life, and even one expert retained by the hospital would find serious problems with his treatment.
The hospital defended the care, but paid the family $6 million to settle the matter privately and avoid devastating publicity, documents show.
The hospital insisted on keeping the complaints and the settlement secret.
...In a scorching July 2014 email to the hospital’s lawyers, Wendy R. Armstrong, a lawyer and the wife of Mr. Armstrong’s son Mark, noted that Mark and his brother, Rick, would soon be traveling to Florida to speak at a ceremony marking the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing.
“This event at Kennedy Space Center will receive national news coverage,” Wendy Armstrong wrote. “Rick and Mark have been solicited by several book writers and filmmakers for ‘information about Neil that no one already knows.’”
The lawyer suggested that unless the parties reached a quick settlement, the hospital would be publicly criticized for giving lethally flawed care to one of America’s most famous and revered public figures..."
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