WILMINGTON, Del. (Legal Newsline) – The Supreme Court of Delaware reversed a decision from the Superior Court on Aug. 21 in a medical negligence case in which a patient’s bladder was ruptured during a 2013 diagnostic laparoscopy procedure.
Plaintiff Amanda M. Norman appealed the state Superior Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants All About Women P.A. and Dr. Christine W. Maynard. The summary judgment had followed the court’s ruling that the expert’s testimony “failed to show that his opinions were ‘based on information reasonably relied upon by experts’ in his field.’”
In the filing from the Delaware Supreme Court written by Judge James T. Vaughn, it was indicated that the Superior Court misinterpreted the expert opinion’s factor, which stated that it should be “based upon information reasonable relied upon by experts in the particular field.”
Vaughn stated that this factor should be used to “guard against the use of unreliable hearsay,” and that Dr. Jeffrey Soffer’s 20 years of experience as an obstetrician and gynecologist was “clearly sufficient…to justify admission of his opinions.”
Medical literature or peer-reviewed publications, according to Vaughn, may have been relevant to the defense in the case, “but they have no bearing on the admissibility of Dr. Soffer’s opinions."
“Dr. Soffer’s deposition testimony, considered as a whole, is sufficient to establish the applicable standards of care, Dr. Maynard’s deviations from those standards, and injury to Ms. Norman caused by those deviations,” said Vaughn. “His testimony is admissible.”
In question was Soffer’s testimony that provided the opinion that Maynard breached the standard of care by causing the injury to the plaintiff’s bladder during the procedure.
The board-certified obstetrician stated that Norman’s injury likely occurred “during Dr. Maynard’s placement of the second trocar. Such placement, he says, should be done under direct visualization so as to ‘certainly avoid injury’ and any injury ‘represents careless and sloppy surgical technique,’” the ruling stated.
Additionally, Soffer stated that the standard of care dictated that the “operative site and adjacent structures,” which included the bladder, should have been examined before the procedure was completed.
The Superior Court had argued that Soffer’s testimony did not “articulate a standard of care or how Dr. Maynard deviated” from it. Further, it said that he had not identified any “medical literature or peer-reviewed publications that he relied upon in formulating his opinion that Dr. Maynard had acted negligently.”
Supreme Court of the State of Delaware case number K14C-12-003