Bronx County Supreme Court Granted James’ Navarro Motion

In January 2016, the Bronx County Supreme Court granted James’ Navarro motion for summary judgment dismissing a wrongful death action against an individual physician and major medical institution.  This case involved a host of allegations against defendants, including, among other things, the alleged failure to diagnose and treat cardiac ischemia, congestive heart failure, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, left ventricle hypertrophy, arteriosclerotic heart disease, diminished left ventricle ejection fraction and pulmonary hypertension.  Through their expert affirmation, defendants demonstrated that they appropriately treated the decedent at all relevant times and that the patient died because of a sudden cardiac arrest which was unforeseen, could not have been prevented and was not due to the claimed malpractice.  Accordingly, the Court dismissed plaintiff’s action in all respects.

In September 2015, following oral argument over the course of multiple sessions, the New York County Supreme Court granted James’ motion for summary judgment dismissing a medical malpractice action against an individual physician and major medical institution.  In that action, it was alleged that the physician had negligently failed to remove a surgical clip during a robotic prostatectomy.  Plaintiff claimed that the clip migrated to his bladder, caused urinary incontinence and required him to undergo further surgical procedures.  On the strength of our expert affirmation, we argued that the surgical clip was intended to be permanently left in the patient’s body, and migration of a surgical clip was a known risk of using a clip.  The Court found that defendants had prima facie established their entitlement to summary judgment and adopted defendants’ arguments in finding that plaintiff had failed to raise an issue of fact.  Significantly, the Court held that plaintiff’s expert was unqualified as a matter of law to comment on the performance of the robotic prostatectomy at issue.  It also rejected the substance of plaintiff’s expert affirmation as conclusory.  Accordingly, plaintiff’s action was dismissed in all respects.