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Patient struck by camera during surgery may allege ordinary negligence
March 30, 2020In a split decision, the Connecticut Appellate Court has revived a woman’s negligence claim against a hospital after a camera fell onto her during robotic surgery. Because the woman alleges that her injuries sound in ordinary—and not medical—negligence, the court held she does not have to comply with the state’s medical expert filing requirement to survive summary judgment. Whether a claim is medical or ordinary negligence is a fact-based inquiry, the court said, and the site of the injury alone is not enough to presume medical negligence. (Young v. Hartford Hosp., 2020 WL 995705 (Conn. App. Ct. Mar. 3, 2020).)
Physician Catherine Graziani performed robotic hysterectomy surgery on Wendy Young at Hartford Hospital in May 2016. A day after the surgery, Young experienced extreme pain on her left side and developed a large bruise. Young underwent a CT scan and was given morphine for her pain. She continued to experience pain, and at a June 2016 office visit with Graziani, she was informed that a robotic camera had fallen on her left side during the surgery.
Young sued Hartford Hospital in Connecticut state court, claiming that the hospital allowed the use of defective equipment, failed to inspect and secure the camera prior to surgery, and failed to train staff in the inspection and operation of the camera. She also alleged the hospital failed to inform her that the camera had fallen onto her during surgery and failed to warn her that this was a risk of the surgery. The hospital countered that Young’s complaint was deficient under Connecticut General Statute §52-190a, which requires medical negligence plaintiffs to attach to their complaint a certificate of good faith and an expert opinion regarding the negligence. Agreeing with the hospital, the trial court dismissed Young’s complaint.
On appeal, the Connecticut Appellate Court considered whether Young’s complaint sounded in medical or ordinary negligence—and consequentially, whether Young needed to comply with §52-190a’s expert opinion filing requirement. The court looked to a three-prong test to determine whether Young’s claim constituted medical negligence: whether the defendant was being sued in its capacity as a "medical professional,” whether the negligence was of a “specialized medical nature,” and whether the negligence was “substantially related to medical diagnosis or treatment and involved the exercise of medical judgment.” (Trimel v. Lawrence & Mem’l Hosp. Rehab. Ctr., 764 A.2d 203 (2001).) The Trimel court emphasized that to constitute medical negligence, a claim must involve “improper conduct in the treatment or operative skill [or] . . . the failure to exercise medical skill.”
In Young’s case, the appellate court agreed that the first prong of the test was satisfied—the hospital was clearly being sued in its capacity as a medical professional. However, the appellate court disagreed as to prongs two and three, finding that the trial court had incorrectly conflated the two prongs. While Young was injured during medical treatment, she had alleged that “the negligent conduct that caused [her] injuries was not related to her treatment.” The plaintiff argued that the equipment malfunction did not involve medical judgment and that “although the context was medical . . . the negligence was not medical in nature.”
Reversing and remanding, a majority of the appellate court determined that a reasonable factfinder might find support for Young’s ordinary negligence claims. Whether the negligence was ordinary or medical depends on the specific facts of the case, which, for Young’s claims, have not yet been established, the court said. While “failing to properly secure the camera” might be ordinary negligence, “operating the robot in such a manner to cause the camera to fall” might support a claim of medical negligence, the court said.
New Haven, Conn., attorney Stephen Bellis, who represents Young, said the defense bar took Connecticut’s expert report filing requirement “too far.” He added that “while the legislature’s goal was to get rid of frivolous cases, the defense has been attempting to use the requirement to get rid of valid cases. Now the court has swung the pendulum back in the correct direction. Just because an injury occurs in a medical setting, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the result of medical negligence.”