COLUMBIA, S.C. (Legal Newsline) - A woman whose breast implant “blew open” in the shower gets another chance to sue her surgeon for malpractice, after the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled jurors were improperly prevented from hearing about the doctor’s three-way sex relationship with his office manager.
The office manager was the only witness to an alleged confrontation between the plaintiff and her doctor in which he berated her for seeing another doctor about her poorly healing surgery and angrily threw his tray in the sink.
Jurors were entitled to decide whether the office manager was biased toward her boss, since in addition to being in a long-term sexual relationship with him, she received free plastic surgery and a generous salary, the high court ruled in a Jan. 8 opinion by Justice John Few.
Jeane Whitfield sued Dr. Dennis Schimpf and Sweetgrass Plastic Surgery in 2017 after she suffered complications from breast implant surgery she originally received from another doctor in 2009. Dr. Schimpf removed scar tissue known as encapsulation and replaced her implants in 2014. Whitfield complained about an oozing wound and saw another surgeon, Dr. Ram Kalus, before returning to Dr. Schimpf.
She testified Dr. Schimpf criticized her for seeing another surgeon, placed a few stitches to close the oozing wound, threw his tray in the sink and told her to ”get out of here.” Two days later, when Whitfield was in the shower, her right breast "blew open all the way through" and blood poured out
Whitfield’s lawyer sought to introduce evidence about how the office manager, Vicky Tolbert, had a relationship with her boss and his wife, including sex with the two of them a week before her deposition. That would undermine her testimony Dr. Schimpf would “never be angry.”
But the trial judge ruled the value of the evidence was outweighed by its prejudicial effect. The jury ruled for Dr. Schimpf and court of appeals upheld.
The Supreme Court reversed, ruling the jury was entitled to hear evidence of bias by Tolbert toward the defendant.
“We do see some danger of unfair prejudice in the fear the information about Schimpf's extramarital relationship with a staff member would paint Schimpf's character in a negative light and distract the jury from the central issue in the case,” the court said. But since Tolbert was a vital witness to whether Dr. Schimpf was negligent in failing to surgically correct the wound, the court said the jury should decide if she was biased.
It wasn’t necessary for the jury to hear about the doctor’s wife, however, the court ruled.
“The fact Schimpf was involved in a three-way relationship with both his office manager and his wife is a bizarre circumstance that poses a substantially increased risk the jury may be distracted from the central issues in the case,” the court concluded