SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (Legal Newsline) - An Illinois law designed to prevent doctors from needlessly being dragged into litigation has a relatively low bar, the state Supreme Court ruled, reviving a lawsuit against a critical-care doctor accused of missing the signs of a malfunctioning drug-delivery device.
Carol Cleeton sued SIU Healthcare and a number of physicians and nurses after her son Donald died in 2017. Donald had been left quadriplegic by an injury when he was 17 and required a Medtronic infusion system to deliver the drug baclovin to his spine to reduce involuntary muscle spasms.
After a routine pump refill in 2017, Donald developed headache, abdominal pain and spasms and returned to the hospital. After an evaluation by doctors he was transferred to the intensive care unit under the care of Dr. Mouhamad Bakir, a pulmonary critical care specialist. Dr. Bakir later testified he consulted a cardiologist, neurologist, neurosurgery and a team familiar with the Medtronic pump since he had no experience with one.
Medtronic faxed the emergency procedures for baclofen withdrawal but Dr. Bakir testified he never received them. Donald died after his pulse halted and three hours of failed resuscitation attempts. His mother sued in 2019, naming Memorial Medical Center, several doctors, Medtronic and three nurses. It turned out the pump line had holes in it.
Dr. Bakir initially was named only as a witness in discovery, but Cleeton moved to name him a defendant after receiving an expert report from Dr. William Stephen Minor stating he deviated from the standard of care by failing to diagnose baclofen withdrawal or act on the faxed instructions from Medtronic.
Such an opinion is required under Illinois Section 2-402, which was amended to cut down on frivolous medical malpractice suits. A trial court refused to name Dr. Bakir a defendant, however, ruling that the plaintiff’s expert said Dr. Bakir deviated from the standard of care but failed to establish what that was. An appeals court affirmed that decision, but the Illinois Supreme Court reversed in a May 18 decision.
“We are not, at the respondent-in-discovery stage, determining the factual question of liability or determining whether Dr. Bakir is guilty of malpractice,” the court ruled. “Dr. Minore’s affidavit may not have stated the specific standard of care from which Dr. Bakir deviated, but it did provide the court with sufficient information about what Dr. Bakir failed to do based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty—timely recognize that Donald suffered from BWS, timely order treatment, and timely administer that treatment.”
Whether those actions caused Donald Cleeton’s death is up to the jury, the court concluded.