Justia Medical Malpractice Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, as guardian ad litem for Jakari Baize, filed a complaint against Defendants, healthcare providers, alleging negligence in failing properly to treat Jakari for a severe case of jaundice that left him permanently disabled. After discovery had been conducted and certain expert witnesses had been deposed, Plaintiff dismissed all claims against all defendants without prejudice. The trial court granted Defendants’ motion for an award of expert witness fees for the actual time that the experts Plaintiffs had designated spent testifying during their respective depositions as costs under N.C. Gen. Stat. 7A-305. The Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that the trial court erred by awarding the expert witness fees as costs because Defendants were statutorily required to subpoena the expert witnesses as a prerequisite for obtaining such relief. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the General Assembly eliminated the traditional subpoena requirement associated with the taxing of certain expert witness fees as costs in civil actions; and (2) therefore, the trial court correctly taxed expert witness fees in accordance with section 7A-305(d)(11) against Plaintiff. View "Lassiter v. N.C. Baptist Hosps., Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff Dow Tillson underwent an elective procedure to remove a cataract in his left eye. Defendant Dr. Richard Lane, M.D., performed the procedure at Springfield Hospital. Plaintiffs alleged in their amended complaint that within twenty-four hours of surgery, Mr. Tillson’s left eye showed signs of infection. Dr. Lane made a presumptive diagnosis of endopthalmitis, but did not refer Mr. Tillson to a retinologist for treatment. Within forty-eight hours of surgery, Mr. Tillson was permanently blind in his left eye. Plaintiff sued for medical malpractice, and defendants the doctor and hospital, moved for summary judgment. Plaintiffs appealed the superior court’s decision to grant defendants’ motion. Upon review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court concluded that deposition testimony of plaintiff’s expert witness was sufficient to withstand a motion for summary judgment. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Tillson v. Lane" on Justia Law

A wrongful-death beneficiary failed to prosecute this medical-malpractice case for four years, so, on the defendant’s motion, the circuit judge dismissed the complaint. The plaintiff refiled, and the defendant twice moved to dismiss, arguing that the statute of limitations had lapsed. Both motions were denied, and the Mississippi Supreme Court granted interlocutory appeal. Because the statute of limitations was not tolled when cases are dismissed for lack of prosecution, the second complaint was untimely. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded for dismissal. View "Thornhill v. Ingram" on Justia Law

Darla Keck filed a medical malpractice case against doctors Chad Collins, DMD, and Patrick Collins, DDS after she experienced complications following sleep apnea surgery. The Doctors moved for summary judgment, arguing she lacked a qualified medical expert who could provide testimony to establish her claim. In response to the motion, her counsel filed two timely affidavits and one untimely affidavit from her medical expert. The trial court granted a motion to strike the untimely affidavit. Considering the remaining affidavits, the court ruled that the expert did not connect his opinions to specific facts to support the contention that the Doctors' treatment fell below the standard of care. Therefore, the court granted summary judgment for the Doctors. The Court of Appeals reversed. Although it agreed that the two timely affidavits lacked sufficient factual support to defeat summary judgment, it held that the trial court should have denied the motion to strike and should have considered the third affidavit. This affidavit, the court held, contained sufficient factual support to defeat summary judgment. This case raised two issues for the Supreme Court's review on appeal of the Court of Appeals' reversal: (1) whether the trial court used the appropriate standard of review for the challenged ruling to strike untimely filed evidence submitted in response to the summary judgment motion; and (2) whether the expert's timely second affidavit showed a genuine issue for trial that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the plaintiff to defeat summary judgment. The Supreme Court held that the trial court abused its discretion for failing to consider the factors from the governing caselaw, "Burnet v. Spokane Ambulance," ( 933 P.2d 1036 (1997)), on the record before striking the evidence. The Court also held that the second, timely-filed affidavid showed a genuine issue for trial that ciould have defeated summary judgment. The Supreme Court therefore affirmed the Court of Appeals' reversal. View "Keck v. Collins" on Justia Law

Dusty McIlwain brought his two-year-old son Hunter to the Natchez Community Hospital emergency room because Hunter had been vomiting, crying, and complaining of pain. Dr. Michael Wheelis, the emergency room doctor, knew Dusty and previously had worked with Carol McIlwain (a nurse), Dusty’s mother and Hunter’s grandmother. Dr. Wheelis was aware that Hunter had suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage previously as a result of a motor vehicle accident. That night, Dusty and Carol McIlwain informed Dr. Wheelis only that Hunter had abdominal pain and had vomited. Dr. Wheelis did not observe any neurological symptoms. After deciding that Hunter should be kept overnight in the hospital for observation, Dr. Wheelis, who had no authority to admit patients, spoke with Dr. Jennifer Russ, a pediatrician, at the request of the family, at approximately 2:10 a.m. After conferring, Drs. Russ and Wheelis diagnosed Hunter with dehydration and gastroenteritis. Several hours later, Hunter had a seizure, and was moved to the intensive care unit (ICU). Approximately 24 hours after he was admitted to the hospital, a CT scan of Hunter revealed that he suffered an aneurysm. He slipped into a coma and was pronounced dead several hours after the test. Jennifer McIlwain filed a medical malpractice suit against the doctors involved with Hunter's treatment. Trial was held more than ten years after Hunter had died, and ended in a deadlock. The trial court declared a mistrial. Following entry of the Order of Mistrial, the defendants filed motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), arguing that Jennifer McIlwain had failed to establish her burden of proof as to the issue of causation. The trial court granted the motions and entered a final judgment of dismissal as to all claims in favor of all defendants. Jennifer timely filed this appeal. The Supreme Court affirmed in part, and reversed in part. The Court found that Jennifer offered sufficient evidence of the requisite elements of a medical-negligence case against Dr. Wheelis; therefore, the trial court erred in granting Dr. Wheelis’s motion for JNOV. However, Plaintiff’s expert Dr. Miller failed to develop evidence that a violation of the standard of care in the setting in which she practiced was equivalent to that as applied to Dr. Russ, and the Court found the trial court did not err in granting Dr. Russ’s motion for JNOV. View "McIlwain v. Natchez Community Hospital, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court amended its Rules of Civil Procedure to require malpractice plaintiffs to file a certificate of merit (COM) within 60 days of bringing suit, under penalty of dismissal. Five years later, to dismissal of meritorious claims due to technical oversights, the Court amended the Rules again, setting conditions that had to be met before a defendant could seek dismissal. The Third Circuit previously held that the COM requirement is substantive state law that must be applied by a federal court sitting in diversity. Schmigel sued Dr. Uchal, who performed Schigel’s laparoscopic adjustable gastric band surgery in Pennsylvania before moving to Florida. Realizing that no COM had been filed, Uchal waited out the 60-day window, then filed a motion to dismiss. The next day, Schmigel’s counsel filed an “answer,” attaching the missing COM, and arguing that Uchal had not waited 30 days after giving notice of the deficiency to allow for cure before filing his motion to dismiss, The district court dismissed. The Third Circuit reversed, finding that conditions precedent to dismissing an action for failure to comply with the COM requirement, including fair notice to a plaintiff, are substantive law that must be applied in federal court. View "Schmigel v. Uchal" on Justia Law

In 2007, plaintiff Lisa Tyra received a kidney transplant at defendant William Beaumont Hospital, with a kidney made available by defendant Organ Procurement Agency of Michigan. Plaintiff allegedly suffered complications because the kidney did not constitute a proper match, and she filed suit asserting defendants should have identified this fact before the surgery. When plaintiff filed her complaint, the 182-day notice period set forth in MCL 600.2912b(1) had not yet expired. Organ Procurement moved for summary disposition on the basis that plaintiff’s complaint was filed prematurely, and the period of limitations had since expired. The hospital and Dr. Steven Cohn, the transplant surgeon, joined the motion and the trial court later granted the motion. The trial court reasoned that, under "Burton v Reed City Hosp Corp," (691 NW2d 424 (2005)), the prematurely filed complaint failed to toll the running of the period of limitations and plaintiff could not cure the error by refiling the complaint. The legal issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether the controlling caselaw authority governing this case, "Zwiers v Growney," (778 NW2d 81 (2009)), was overruled by the Michigan Supreme Court in "Driver v Naini," (802 NW2d 311 (2011)). The Court of Appeals held that Zwiers was not overruled in Driver. Because the Supreme Court concluded to the contrary, it reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals in part in both "Tyra v Organ Procurement Agency of Mich," (850 NW2d 667 (2013)), and "Furr v McLeod," (848 NW2d 465 (2014)). In "Tyra," the Court reinstated the trial court’s order granting defendants’ motion for summary disposition, and in "Furr," the Court remanded the case back to the trial court for entry of an order granting defendants’ motion for summary disposition. View "Tyra v. Organ Procurement Agency of Michigan" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Georgia Supreme Court's review centered on a question about the qualification of expert witnesses under OCGA 24-7-702 (“Rule 702”). Specifically, the issue reduced to what sort of experience was required of a practicing surgeon who was offered as an expert witness in a medical malpractice case to opine that another surgeon breached the applicable standard of medical care in the course of performing a surgical procedure. In this case, the Court of Appeals held that a surgeon was not qualified as a matter of law under Rule 702 (c)(2)(A) to give expert testimony about negligence in connection with a laparoscopic procedure to repair an umbilical hernia because he had not performed more than one laparoscopic procedure to repair an umbilical hernia in the last five years, notwithstanding that the surgeon had performed many other abdominal laparoscopic procedures during that time. The Supreme Court issued a writ of certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals understood Rule 702 (c)(2)(A) correctly, and concluded that it did not. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. View "Dubois v. Brantley" on Justia Law

In this health care liability case Plaintiff sent Defendants pre-suit notice of the claim via FedEx. Defendants moved for summary judgment, alleging that Plaintiff failed to comply with the requirements of Tenn. Code Ann. 29-26-121(a)(3)(B) and (a)(4) by not using certified mail, return receipt requested, through the U.S. Postal Service. The trial court dismissed the complaint, concluding that strict compliance with the manner and proof of service requirements of sections 29-26-121(a)(3)(B) and (a)(4) was required. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the manner and proof of service prescribed by sections 29-26-121(a)(3)(B) and (a)(4) may be achieved through substantial compliance; (2) delivery of pre-suit notice by private commercial carrier and filing of proof with the complaint constitutes substantial compliance with sections 29-26-121(a)(3)(B) and (a)(4); and (3) because Defendants received notice and were not prejudiced by the manner of service, Plaintiff’s provision of pre-suit notice to Defendants through the use of FedEx and filing of proof with the complaint constituted substantial compliance with the manner and proof of service requirements of the pre-suit notice statute. Remanded. View "Arden v. Kozawa" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, individually and as the administrator of the estate of his son, Jonathan Radzik, sued Francisco Sylvester, a board certified specialist in pediatrics, and related healthcare entities (collectively, Defendants), alleging that Sylvester had negligently prescribed Remicade for Jonathan, which led to Jonathan’s death. At issue here was the trial court’s grant of Plaintiff’s motion to compel electronic discovery of the hard drives of certain computers used by Sylvester. Defendants filed an interlocutory appeal of the discovery order. The Appellate Court dismissed the appeal for lack of a final judgment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the discovery order did not constitute a final judgment. View "Radzick v. Conn. Children's Med. Ctr." on Justia Law