Glisson was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. His larynx, part of his pharynx, portions of his mandible and 13 teeth were removed. He was fitted with a voice prosthesis, and received postoperative radiation treatment. Later, doctors inserted a gastrojejunostomy tube to help with nutrition and a cancerous lesion on his tongue was excised. Glisson also suffered memory issues, hypothyroidism, depression, smoking, and alcohol abuse. Glisson was sentenced to incarceration for giving a friend prescription painkillers. Prison medical personnel noted spikes in Glisson’s blood pressure, low pulse, low oxygen saturation level, confusion, and anger. His condition worsened, indicating acute renal failure. After a short hospital stay, Glisson died in prison. The district court rejected his mother’s suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 on summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit initially affirmed, rejecting a claim that failure to implement an Indiana Department of Corrections Health Care Service Directive, requiring a plan for management of chronic diseases, violated the Eighth Amendment. On rehearing, en banc, the court reversed. The Department’s healthcare contractor, Corizon, was not constitutionally required to adopt the Directives or any particular document, but was required to ensure that a well-recognized risk for a defined class of prisoners not be deliberately left to happenstance. Corizon had notice of the problems posed by lack of coordination, but did nothing to address that risk. Glisson was managing his difficult medical situation successfully until he fell into the hands of the Indiana prison system and Corizon. View "Glisson v. Indiana Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Betty Collins appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants Ricardo Herring, D.C., and Herring Chiropractic Center, LLC. Collins sought damages for alleged medical malpractice with respect to treatment of knee, shoulder and back pain. Collins's knee was treated with a cold pack. The evidence, viewed in a light most favorable to Collins, indicated that the cold pack had been in the refrigerator for seven days, that it had not been thawed when Collins arrived for her appointment, and that it was hard on the day of her treatment in contrast to her treatment on other visits. Collins felt heat when the cold pack was removed from her knee. Collins developed blisters on her knee following the treatment and later scarring. In their summary-judgment motion, defendants argued that Collins had not produced any evidence demonstrating that Dr. Herring's treatment fell below the applicable standard of care. The defendants argued that Collins failed to present testimony from a similarly situated expert witness because Collins had not designated an expert witness as required under the Alabama Medical Liability Act to testify that Dr. Herring breached his duty of care in treating Collins.The Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. "In the instant case, the procuring and application of the cold pack was within the exclusive control of the defendants, and no evidence was presented indicating that Collins contributed to her injuries. Blistering and subsequent scarring does not ordinarily occur following the application of a cold pack, absent negligence. The causative relationship between Collins's injury and the defendants' acts are such that it can be readily understood, to the extent that a layperson can reliably determine the issue of causation without independent expert testimony to assist in that determination." View "Collins v. Herring Chiropractic Center, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued Defendants, health care providers, alleging professional negligence. Defendants filed a motion to compel authorization of an informal discussion with the surgeon who performed the Plaintiff’s surgery. The surgeon was not named as a defendant. Upon Plaintiff’s motion, the district court issued a protective order requiring Plaintiff to authorize the surgeon to participate in the informal discussion but restricting Defendants’ questioning of the surgeon to his own treatment of Plaintiff. Defendants filed an interlocutory appeal. Meanwhile, the parties and the surgeon participated in an informal discussion. While the interlocutory appeal was pending, the case was tried to a jury. The district court allowed the surgeon to opine on matters other than his own treatment of Plaintiff. The jury found in favor of Defendants. Thereafter, the court of appeals proceeded to decide the interlocutory appeal and reversed the district court’s protective order, concluding that Defendants were allowed to ask the surgeon about Defendants’ care of Plaintiff and the cause of her injury. The Supreme Court vacated the court of appeals’ opinion, holding that the court of appeals lacked appellate jurisdiction over the interlocutory order. View "Howard v. Svoboda" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit for dental malpractice, alleging Dr. Nahigian had negligently performed oral surgery on her and Dr. Matar, as Dr. Nahigian's principal and employer, was vicariously liable for Dr. Nahigian's negligence. The trial court granted summary judgment for Dr. Nahigian and Dr. Matar. The court affirmed the grant of summary judgment for Dr. Nahigian based solely on the statute of limitations, expressly declining to reach the issue of causation. However, in regard to Dr. Matar, the court agreed with plaintiff that neither claim preclusion or issue preclusion applies in this case. Therefore, the court reversed the grant of summary judgment as to Dr. Matar and remanded for further proceedings. View "Samara v. Matar" on Justia Law

Lake, a prisoner at Illinois’ Hill Correctional Center, claimed, in his suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, that Dr. Jackson, the prison’s dentist had refused to send him to an outside dentist to extract a decayed tooth that was causing him pain. Lake claimed that Wexford, the contractor serving the prison, has policy of withholding medical care to save money. Although Dr. Jackson assured him that his mouth could be numbed successfully, Lake refused to let her pull the tooth and complained to Wexford that he was suffering needlessly because of its refusal to provide him with outside treatment. Lake later agreed to let a different prison dentist extract the tooth. A local anesthetic was used during the extraction, but Lake complained afterward that the procedure had been painful. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment, rejecting Lake’s claims, and agreeing that a jury would have to find that Dr. Jackson had been exercising professional judgment in predicting that administering a local anesthetic would enable her to extract the decayed tooth without inflicting significant pain. View "Lake v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc." on Justia Law

Harper, an Illinois prisoner, sued a prison doctor and a nurse under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for deliberate indifference to his pain following nine abdominal surgeries, the management of his diet, and inattention to a possible renal cell tumor. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendants, concluding that Harper had not produced evidence from which a jury could find that either defendant ignored a substantial risk of harm. Harper was evaluated and treated each time that he appeared at the health center, given a treatment plan, and told to return if his symptoms persisted. Harper is not entitled to dictate how he should have been treated or whether he should have been transferred. View "Harper v. Santos" on Justia Law

After a surgical procedure was performed on Elliot Kaplan as a result of a misdiagnosis, the Kaplans filed suit against Mayo for medical malpractice, breach of contract, lack of informed consent, and loss of consortium. The district court dismissed all claims against Dr. Nagorney, the surgeon who performed the medical procedure; the district court granted Mayo's motion for judgment as a matter of law on the breach-of-contract claim; and the jury returned a verdict for defendants on the malpractice claim. On appeal, the court upheld the jury verdict but vacated the judgment in favor of Mayo on the breach-of-contract claim, and held that the district court erred by requiring expert testimony to establish a contract breach and remanded the claim to trial. The district court subsequently entered judgment for Mayo. The court concluded that substantial evidence supports the district court's finding that Dr. Nagorney did not promise to do a biopsy of Elliot’s pancreas during the surgery and that no meeting of the minds occurred to form a contract. The court rejected plaintiffs' claim that this court, in Kaplan I, forbid defendants' use of expert testimony to establish a defense to the claim of a special contract in the performance of the operation. Because the district court committed no error, the court upheld the district court's factual findings. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Kaplan v. Mayo Clinic" on Justia Law

Melissa Bain, in her capacity as the personal representative of the estate of her deceased husband Christopher Heath ("Heath"), appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of Colbert County Northwest Alabama Health Care Authority d/b/a Helen Keller Hospital ("HKH"). Dr. Preston Wigfall was the emergency-room physician working at the hospital on the night Heath was taken to the emergency room. Dr. Wigfall ordered certain tests to be run, but he was unable to determine from the results of those tests the cause of Heath's symptoms. Heath was discharged approximately six hours after his arrival with an "unspecified" diagnosis with instructions to follow up with his primary-care physician. Approximately 20 days after his visit to the emergency room at the hospital, Heath died when a 45-millimeter ascending aortic aneurysm dissected. Bain, in her capacity as the personal representative of Heath's estate, filed a medical-malpractice action against HKH and several other defendants, arguing that that the emergency-department nurses at the hospital and Dr. Wigfall breached the applicable standards of care when they treated Heath; that Dr. Wigfall, at all relevant times, was acting within the line and scope of his duties and employment as an actual or apparent agent or employee of HKH; and that HKH was vicariously liable for the actions of its nurses and Dr. Wigfall. After review, the Supreme Court concluded Bain failed to demonstrate that the trial court erred in entering a summary judgment in favor of HKH as to all of Bain's claims and affirmed the circuit court's judgment. View "Bain v. Colbert County Northwest Alabama Health Care Authority" on Justia Law

In this case, a manufacturer sold a surgical device to a hospital, which credentialed some of its physicians to perform surgery with the device. The manufacturer's warnings regarding that device were at the heart of this case: whether the manufacturer owed a duty to warn the hospital that purchased the device. The manufacturer argued that since it warned the physician who performed the surgery, it had no duty to warn any other party. The Supreme Court disagreed because the doctor was often not the product purchaser. The Court found that the WPLA required manufacturers to warn purchasers about their dangerous medical devices. “Hospitals need these warnings to credential the operating physicians and to provide optimal care for patients. In this case, the trial court did not instruct the jury that the manufacturer had a duty to warn the hospital that purchased the device. Consequently, we find that the trial court erred.” View "Taylor v. Intuitive Surgical Inc." on Justia Law

Andrew Minnich visited the South Charleston MedExpress to seek medical care. During his attempt to access an examination table, Andrew, who had recently undergone hip surgery, fell and sustained injuries. Andrew died ninety days later. Thereafter, Joyce Minnich filed a complaint against Medexpress Urgent Care, Inc. (MedExpress), alleging, inter alia, negligence based on premises liability. The circuit court granted summary judgment for MedExpress as to the premises liability claim and directed Petitioner to amend her complaint to plead a medical malpractice claim compliant with the filing requirements of the West Virginia Medical Professional Liability Act (MPLA). Petitioner appealed, arguing that the MPLA did not apply because Andrew was not treated by a “health care provider” prior to his fall within the MedExpress within the facility. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that a “health care provider,” as defined by the MPLA, did provide health care related services to Andrew prior to his fall, and therefore, the circuit court did not err in deciding that the MPLA applied to this case. View "Minnich v. MedExpress Urgent Care, Inc." on Justia Law