Justia Medical Malpractice Opinion Summaries

Doctor performed a spinal fusion on Patient. When Patient’s back pain worsened, Patient sued Doctor, alleging that Doctor failed to give him adequate information to enable him to give an informed consent to the surgery. In a pretrial deposition, Patient’s expert testified that to obtain informed consent, Doctor was required to inform Patient about all the potential risks that might arise from the surgery. The trial court granted Doctor’s motion to limit Patient’s expert witness testimony only to those risks that allegedly materialized and injured Patient. After a trial, the jury returned a verdict in Doctor’s favor. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s exclusion of the expert medical testimony. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trial court erred by excluding expert testimony regarding undisclosed medical risks that had not materialized, and this error, more likely than not, affected the jury’s verdict. Remanded for a new trial on the issue of informed consent. View "White v. Beeks" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs initiated a medical malpractice suit against numerous medical organizations and professionals twelve years after their daughter, Yendee, was born with a genetic disorder. Plaintiffs alleged negligence in the diagnosis and treatment relating to Yendee’s genetic disorder and also asserted their own claims for loss of consortium. The superior court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss, concluding (1) Plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the statute of limitations set forth in R.I. Gen. Laws 9-1-14.1; and (2) in light of Yendee’s status as a minor, the tolling provision in section 9-1-14.1(1) would allow Yendee to file suit in the future on her own behalf upon reaching the age of majority, but Yendee’s parents would not be permitted to attach their loss-of-consortium claims to Yendee’s future suit. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) under section 9-1-14.1(1), a minor’s parent or guardian may file suit on the minor’s behalf within three years of the occurrence or reasonable discovery of alleged malpractice, or the minor may file suit on her own behalf, but not until she reaches the age of majority; but (2) Plaintiffs’ claims may be asserted alongside Yendee’s claims if she elects to file suit upon reaching the age of majority. View "Ho-Rath v. Rhode Island Hospital" on Justia Law

Captain Heather Ortiz was an active-duty service member in the United States Air Force. In March 2009, Captain Ortiz was admitted to Evans Army Community Hospital for a scheduled Caesarean section. Complications caused by the medical staff’s administering of drugs in preparation for the surgery caused a precipitous drop in Captain Ortiz’s blood pressure, leading to hypotension. As a result of Captain Ortiz’s hypotension, her baby, “I.O.,” was deprived of oxygen in utero, leading to severe injuries. The issue this case presented for the Tenth Circuit's review centered on whether the federal government was immune from damages for injuries its agents caused to the baby during childbirth. Resolution of the issues in this case was controlled by the Supreme Court’s decision in "Feres v. United States," which found that military service members were barred from bringing claims against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for injuries incident to their military service. Under the Feres doctrine, federal courts lose their subject matter jurisdiction over claims like this because the Tenth Circuit concluded the injured child’s in utero injuries were unmistakably derivative of an injury to her mother, an active service-member who gave birth at an Army Base hospital. "Feres is not ours to overrule. Applying controlling law, the government is not liable under the FTCA for the claims of negligence in this case." View "Ortiz v. United States" on Justia Law

Dr. Daniel Bailey (Appellant) and his wife, Katherine, began divorce proceedings in 2008. Because the file included sensitive information, the trial court ordered that the file be sealed. In 2010, two of Appellant's former patients and their spouses (the Intervening Parties) filed medical negligence claims against Appellant. The Intervening Parties subsequently moved to intervene in the Baileys’ divorce action for the purpose of trying to unseal portions of the divorce record. The circuit court granted the motion to intervene and ordered the divorce record unsealed. Appellant filed a petition for writ of prohibition against the enforcement of the trial court’s order. The Court of Appeals denied the petition after noting that there was no adequate remedy by appeal and reaching the merits of the claimed error. The Supreme Court affirmed but on different ground, holding that the writ was correctly denied because Appellant had an adequate remedy by appeal, and therefore, the remedy of a writ was unavailable to him. View "Bailey v. Hon. Bertram" on Justia Law

Twenty-nine individual Respondents filed eight separate civil actions alleging that Petitioners - three pharmacies and a physician - and other medical providers negligently prescribed and dispensed controlled substances causing Respondents to become addicted to and abuse the controlled substances. Petitioners moved for summary judgment asserting that Respondents’ claims were barred as a matter of law on the basis of Respondents’ admissions of their own criminal activity associated with the prescription and dispensation of controlled substances by Petitioners. Specifically, Petitioners maintained that Respondents’ actions were barred by the “wrongful conduct” rule and/or the doctrine of in pari delicto. The circuit court concluded that the actions were not barred but certified questions regarding the issue to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court answered that any wrongdoing on the part of Respondents must be assessed under the Court’s precepts of comparative negligence and does not per se operate as a complete bar to Respondents’ causes of action. View "Tug Valley Pharmacy, LLC v. All Plaintiffs Below" on Justia Law

The named plaintiff in this case (Plaintiff) obtained a judgment in her favor against Defendants arising out of their medical malpractice. The Supreme Court concluded that the trial court had applied the wrong legal standard in concluding that Plaintiff was not entitled to postjudgment interest and remanded the case to the trial court for consideration of Plaintiff’s request for postjudgment interest under the correct legal standard. Thereafter, the trial court awarded Plaintiff postjudgment interest in the amount of $3,178,696. The Supreme Court reversed in part the order of the trial court, holding (1) the trial court, in awarding eight percent interest on the underlying judgment, did not err in considering the rate of return on certain investments Plaintiff claimed she would have earned if the judgment had been satisfied in a timely manner; but (2) the trial court improperly awarded such interest from October 28, 2010, the date on which the judgment was satisfied, rather than from November 5, 2013, the date on which the trial court awarded postjudgment interest. View "DiLieto v. County Obstetrics & Gynecology Group, P.C." on Justia Law

In 2007, Clyde Snider, Jr. was hospitalized for a suspected myocardial infarction. He would later get surgery and be given a pacemaker. Following up on an unrelated issue, Snider's treating doctors found infection at the site of the pacemaker. The doctor who recommended implantation of the pacemaker was found to have rushed the decision to give Snider the pacemaker. "Except for the relatively minor complication of a hematoma, and the surgical scar after pacemaker extraction," a medical review panel found no evidence of any long term, major injury to Snider. Snider sued the treating doctor and his liability insurer for damages arising out of the doctor's alleged negligence in the implantation of the pacemaker. A jury later found that the doctor did not breach the appropriate standard of care in Snider's medical negligence action, which Snider appealed. Finding that the jury's verdict was supported by the evidence and was not clearly wrong, the Supreme Court affirmed the verdict. View "Snider v. Louisiana Medical Mutual Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Kyle and Marla Moore timely filed a medical malpractice suit against St. Dominic Hospital, Jackson Neurosurgery Clinic, and several physicians, claiming that the physicians and hospital had been negligent in treating Kyle in May 2004. Kyle complained of lower back pain. Kyle was diagnosed with an epidural abscess. Kyle went to the emergency room at St. Dominic on the morning of May 23, 2004; within a 24-hour period, Kyle was seen by a series of doctors at the hospital before getting an operation on May 24. The Moores contended that surgery should have been done sooner and that the delay in treatment resulted in neurological injury to Kyle. In March 2011, the Moores added Dr. Howard Holaday as a defendant. Dr. Holaday moved for summary judgment, asserting that the two-year statute of limitations had expired. The trial court denied summary judgment, and Dr. Holaday petitioned the Supreme Court for an interlocutory appeal. The issue this appeal presented for the Court's review was whether the discovery rule tolled the statute of limitations against Dr. Holaday. The Court held that whether the discovery rule tolls the statute of limitations required a determination by the trier of fact (here, the jury) regarding the “date the alleged act, omission or neglect shall or with reasonable diligence might have been first discovered.” The trial court, therefore, properly denied summary judgment to Dr. Holaday. View "Holaday v. Moore" on Justia Law

A former patient of Dr. Ryan Mitchell, through his guardian ad litem, sued Mitchell for medical malpractice, alleging that Mitchell’s misadministration of anesthesia during a tonsillectomy caused the seven-year-old patient’s heart to fail. Mitchell admitted that at the time he operated on the patient he was addicted to Ketamine and Valium. During discovery, Plaintiff subpoenaed Mitchell’s counseling and substance abuse treatment records. Mitchell objected, citing the doctor-patient and family therapist-client privileges. The district court overruled Mitchell’s claims. Mitchell sought an extraordinary writ directing the district court to protect as privileged the records relating to his substance abuse. The Supreme Court conditionally granted the writ, holding (1) Mitchell’s family and marital therapy records were privileged; and (2) Mitchell’s doctor-patient records, though subject to the statutory patient-litigant exception, should have been reviewed in camera by the district court and appropriate limitations placed on their use before discovery of them was allowed. View "Mitchell v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court" on Justia Law

Shonda Ambers-Phillips and her husband, Richard Phillips, filed a medical malpractice action against SSM DePaul Health Center for leaving foreign objects in Ambers-Phillips’s abdomen nearly fourteen years earlier. The trial court dismissed the complaint with prejudice, concluding that Mo. Rev. Stat.’s ten-year statute of repose applied, making the Phillipses’ claims time-barred and subject to dismissal. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not err in not holding that the statute of repose for foreign-object medical malpractice claims was equitably tolled until Ambers-Phillips discovered the wrong; and (2) statutes of repose are not unconstitutional if not subject to equitable tolling. View "Ambers-Phillips v. SSM DePaul Health Ctr." on Justia Law