Justia Medical Malpractice Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed a health care liability action against Defendant-health care providers. Six days before filing his complaint, Defendant sent a pre-suit notice of his potential claim to each Defendant by certified mail, return receipt requested, as permitted by Tenn. Code Ann. 29-26-121(a)(1). Defendants filed a motion to dismiss on the basis that Plaintiff failed to file with his complaint an affidavit of the person who had sent the pre-suit notice by certified mail. The trial court dismissed the complaint. The court of appeals affirmed but noted the harsh results strict compliance produces in cases such as this one where no prejudice is alleged. The Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the complaint, holding (1) the statutory requirement that an affidavit of the person who sent the pre-suit notice by certified mail be filed with the complaint may be satisfied by substantial compliance; and (2) Plaintiff substantially complied with the statute in this case. View "Thurmond v. Mid-Cumberland Infectious Disease Consultants, PLC " on Justia Law

Respondents, the estate of Anthony Fusco and Anthony's surviving children and widow, filed survival and wrongful death actions against Petitioners, Dr. Kevin Shannon and his medical practice (together, “Dr. Shannon”) for failing to obtain informed consent for the administration of radiation therapy and a drug, Amifostine, to Anthony, Dr. Shannon’s patient. After a jury trial, judgment was entered in favor of Dr. Shannon. The court of special appeals reversed, determining that the trial judge erred in excluding that testimony of Dr. James Trovato, a pharmacist, as Dr. Trovato may have been qualified to offer an opinion due to his substantial experience studying and advising patients regarding oncology medications, including Amifostine. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the trial judge did not err in excluding Dr. Trovato’s testimony because, in his written proffer, Dr. Trovato simply enumerated the risks associated with Amifostine and did not opine about the likelihood and severity of the risks implicated in the administration of the drug. View "Shannon v. Fusco" on Justia Law

Nancy and Lester's Kentucky pain-management clinic closed after the DEA confiscated the doctor’s license for overprescribing narcotics. They then opened two clinics in Ohio. Patients would arrive before they opened, filling the parking lot, where they used drugs and traded prescription forms. Patients often traveled long distances (in groups), although most lived closer to other clinics. After paying their $150 appointment fee (cash only), patients would meet an “assessor” who would review their “day sheet” and provide a completed prescription form for hydrocodone, oxycodone, or other pain medication. Staff completed day sheets and prescription forms in advance. Patients then met the doctor for a minute. About 100 people per day completed this “five minute” process. The clinics also treated phantom patients. Nancy supervised the updating of files for people who had never visited the clinics. The doctor would sign prescriptions for phantom patients, staff would fill the prescriptions, and the pain pills were sold on the street by a Sadler relative. The clinics ordered drugs directly from pharmaceutical companies, but never obtained a license to dispense controlled substances. The Sadlers were convicted of conspiring to distribute controlled substances illegally and maintaining a premises for distributing the substances; Nancy was also convicted of wire fraud and money laundering. The district court sentenced Lester to 151 months and Nancy to 210 months. The Sixth Circuit vacated the wire fraud conviction, but otherwise affirmed. Nancy may have had many bad motives in buying the pills, but unfairly depriving the distributors of their property was not among them; she ordered pills and paid the asking price. View "United States v. Sadler" on Justia Law

Tammie Boyles, as mother and next friend of Colton Elijah Powell Boyles ("Eli"), filed a lawsuit on behalf of her son for injuries he allegedly sustained from an arterial stick while he was hospitalized at University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. Eli's treating physician ordered a blood culture, which was taken by registered nurse Denise Dougherty from Eli's right arm. Later that day, Eli's mother, who is also a nurse, noticed that Eli's fingertips on his right hand were blue or "dusky." Dougherty applied a warm compress to Eli's right hand. The discoloration in Eli's fingertips moved upward from his right hand toward his shoulder. Later Eli was transferred to Children's Hospital of Alabama for treatment of a bowel perforation. While at Children's Hospital, the fingertips of Eli's right hand auto-amputated or fell off. Boyles then filed suit against the nurse. Dougherty filed an answer denying that she was guilty of negligence and denying that there was a causal relationship between her and the injury alleged in the complaint. The trial court entered summary judgment in favor of Dougherty. The trial court concluded that a summary judgment in favor of Dougherty was proper because "[Boyles] lacked an expert capable of testifying as to causation [and] there has been no evidence presented to the [trial court] that [Eli]'s injuries were probably a result of a breach of the standard of care by Dougherty." Boyles appealed. Upon careful review, the Supreme Court concluded that the evidence in this case was sufficient to warrant the child's injuries occurred as alleged. Therefore, the Court reversed the summary judgment entered in favor of Dougherty, and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Boyles v. Dougherty" on Justia Law

Respondents in this case included Kaiser Foundation Health and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (collectively, Kaiser). Michael Siopes, a public school teacher, enrolled in a Kaiser health plan offered through the Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund (EUTF). Michael was later diagnosed with cancer by a Kaiser medical professional. Michael and his wife, Lacey, subsequently consulted a medical team at Duke University Medical Center. The Duke team determined that Kaiser's diagnosis was erroneous and recommended a different treatment plan. Michael received treatment at Duke that was ultimately successful. Kaiser denied Michael's request for coverage. Michael and Lacey sued Kaiser for, among other things, breach of contract and medical malpractice. Kaiser filed a motion to compel arbitration, arguing that a group agreement entered into Kaiser and the EUTF was applicable to Michael when he signed the enrollment form. The group agreement contained an arbitration provision. The circuit court granted the motion to compel arbitration. The Supreme Court vacated the circuit court's orders, holding (1) the arbitration provision was unenforceable based on the lack of an underlying agreement between Kaiser and Michael to arbitrate; and (2) accordingly, Lacey was also not bound to arbitrate her claims in this case.View "Siopes v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought a medical malpractice action to recover for injuries that their son sustained during delivery. The issues before the Supreme Court in this case centered on whether ORCP 59 H limits an appellate court's ability to review objections to a trial court's instructional rulings and whether a statutory cap on noneconomic damages constitutionally can be applied to actions brought by children injured during birth. The Court of Appeals held that, because defendant had not excepted to the trial court's rulings as ORCP 59 H requires, it could not seek appellate review of those rulings. On appeal and again on review, the parties debated whether the trial court erred in instructing the jury and whether applying a statutory cap to the jury's damages award would violate the Oregon Constitution. The jury returned a general verdict finding that defendant was "negligent in one or more ways alleged by plaintiffs" and, awarded plaintiffs economic damages and noneconomic damages. On appeal, defendant argued that both rulings were incorrect because the informed consent statute had no application to a vaginal delivery. The Supreme Court concluded that because an action for medical malpractice was one for which "the right to jury trial was customary in 1857," Article I, section 17, prohibited the legislature from limiting the jury's determination of noneconomic damages. Having reached that conclusion, the Court did not address plaintiffs' other arguments on constitutional grounds.View "Klutschkowski v. PeaceHealth" on Justia Law

Felicia Rogers Thomas and Thomas Johnson, Jr. appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of William Pace, M.D. in a medical-malpractice suit they filed against the doctor. The Johnsons' claim stemmed from a surgical procedure Dr. Pace had performed on Felicia Johnson. Dr. Pace filed his Answer and Defenses, denying any negligence. On the same day, Dr. Pace served his first set of interrogatories and requests for production of documents to the Johnsons. One interrogatory requested that the Johnsons identify any medical experts they intended to call as witnesses at trial, along with the proposed opinions of those experts. In their response, the Johnsons stated that they had not yet identified an expert to be called as a witness at trial. Dr. Pace then served his first requests for admission and second requests for production of documents to the Johnsons. In response, the Johnsons admitted that they did not have a report from a qualified medical expert stating that Dr. Pace had breached the standard of care applicable to him in any way in his care and treatment of Felicia. Dr. Pace then filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that he was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because the Johnsons had failed to produce any expert testimony to support their claim. The Johnsons moved to quash Dr. Pace's motion, arguing it was premature, because no scheduling order had been entered in the case and no deadline for designating an expert witness had been established. The Johnsons did not respond to the substantive allegations of Dr. Pace's motion for summary judgment. The trial court entered its order granting Dr. Pace's motion for summary judgment. Finding no error in the trial court's grant of summary judgment, the Supreme Court affirmed.View "Johnson, Jr. v. Pace" on Justia Law

In 2003, Kyle Smith's parents sued Dr. Gary Huber and Qualified Emergency Specialists, Inc. for malpractice after Kyle sustained serious and permanent injuries from an epidural hematoma that Hubert failed to diagnose. Prior to trial, Plaintiffs voluntarily filed a notice of dismissal. Plaintiffs refiled the action in 2008 and eventually added Kyle as a party. The trial court awarded damages and prejudgment interest. In calculating prejudgment interest, the court applied the version of Ohio Rev. Code 1343.03(C) that existed at the time the complaint was filed, concluding that subsequent amendments to the statute applied prospectively only. The court of appeals affirmed the award of prejudgment interest but reversed the trial court's decision to suspend the accrual of prejudgment interest from the date of the voluntary dismissal to the refiling of the complaint. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) section 1343.03(C) applies to tort actions filed after June 2, 2004, regardless of when the cause of action accrued; and (2) because the refiled complaint was filed after the legislation had gone into effect, the amended version of the statute applied in this case.View "Longbottom v. Mercy Hosp. Clermont" on Justia Law

Defendants Hector Laurel, M.D., Crissey Watkins, and Comprehensive Anesthesia Services, P.C. ("CAS"), sought a permissive appeal to challenge the circuit court's order denying their motions for a summary judgment. Plaintiff Tiffany Prince underwent a laparoscopic cholecystectomy at The Madison Surgery Center. During the anesthetic induction, Watkins administered what she believed to be 4 milligrams of Zofran from a syringe that had a white label with a handwritten letter "Z" on the label. Watkins testified that that medication had been drawn into the syringe by Dr. Laurel, an anesthesiologist. After the medication was administered, and while Prince was moving from the preoperative stretcher to the operating-room stretcher, Prince became weak and was having trouble breathing. Watkins called for an anesthesiologist and assisted Prince with a bag mask. Subsequently, Dr. Hoger, another anesthesiologist, came in and administered anesthesia medication to Prince. Watkins testified that Dr. Laurel came into the room sometime during the induction of Prince. When talking to Dr. Laurel, Watkins learned that the syringe with the white label actually contained Zemuron, a paralytic, and that the syringe had been used on a previous patient ("Patient A"). Watkins testified that, during Patient A's induction, she had disposed of a syringe of Zemuron because she had touched the cap. Subsequently, she said, Dr. Laurel had drawn another syringe of Zemuron for Patient A. Watkins testified that she subsequently checked Patient A's medical records and that Patient A's medical history was negative for a history of HIV and hepatitis C. During the year following her surgery, Prince underwent routine testing for HIV and hepatitis C, and all of Prince's tests were negative. Prince did not pay for any of the testing. Prince later sued Dr. Laurel, Watkins, and CAS, alleging medical malpractice. The trial court entered orders denying the defendants' motions for a summary judgment. Defendants subsequently filed a "Motion to Reconsider or, Alternatively, Motion for Certification of Order for Appeal," which the trial court also denied. The defendants then filed a petition for a permissive appeal to the Supreme Court, which was granted. Upon review, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded, finding that undisputed expert testimony established that there was no medical basis for concluding that Prince had a risk of developing any disease based on the use of the contaminated syringe, and her test results had all been negative. The trial court should have granted the defendants' motions for a summary judgment on that basis. View "Laurel v. Prince " on Justia Law

Appellant Sarah Dawkins appealed the trial court's decision to grant Union Hospital District d/b/a Wallace Thomson Hospital's (the Hospital) motion to dismiss with prejudice and finding that Appellant was required to comply with the statutory requirements for filing a medical malpractice claim, specifically the Notice of Intent (NOI) and expert affidavit requirements. The Supreme Court emphasized that not every action taken by a medical professional in a hospital or doctor's office necessarily implicates medical malpractice and, consequently, the requirements of the applicable notice statute. Here, the Supreme Court found that Appellant's claim sounded in ordinary negligence and was not subject to the statutory requirements associated with a medical malpractice claim. Appellant's complaint made "clear that she had not begun receiving medical care at the time of her injury, nor does it allege the Hospital's employees negligently administered medical care. Rather, the complaint states that Appellant's injury occurred when she attempted to use the restroom unsupervised, prior to receiving medical care." The Supreme Court reversed the trial court and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Dawkins v. Union Hospital" on Justia Law