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Patient blinded in one eye from surgery wins $1.2 million


 

What did the experts say?

At trial, the plaintiff’s expert, an ophthalmologic surgeon, testified that removing the 6-mm IOL through the 2.75-mm incision and the associated manipulations of the patient’s eye caused the retinal tear and the ensuing retinal detachment, according to court documents. The small tear was not immediately seen by the physician because he was not looking at that part of the eye. The tear grew to become the giant tear eventually seen by the vitreoretinal surgeon, the expert testified.

The vitreoretinal surgeon would not have seen the small retinal tear when he first examined the patient because B-scan ultrasounds are not generally used to diagnose retinal tears, he testified.

A vitreoretinal expert for Dr. Schottenstein testified that retinal tears that are tractional in origin tend to have a retinal flap that can be seen as a small indentation on a B-scan ultrasound. However, a tear with no flap would not be visualized by the scan. An ophthalmologic surgeon who testified for Dr. Schottenstein said it’s possible the retinal tear would not have been visible to Dr. Schottenstein or the vitreoretinal surgeon if vitreous fluid that was pulled into the anterior chamber was not a strand but just a blob too small to distort the pupil.

The jury found for the plaintiff, awarding the patient $1.2 million. Dr. Schottenstein requested the trial court to overturn the jury’s verdict and award judgment in his favor or grant a new trial, which was denied.

On March 1, 2022, the Supreme Court Appellate Division of the First Judicial Department affirmed the decision.

“To be against the weight of the evidence, a verdict must be palpably wrong,” the judges wrote in their opinion. “In this case, we cannot say the verdict is palpably wrong. The jury found that plaintiff’s injuries were proximately caused by defendant. They deemed the testimony of plaintiff’s expert, when considered with the documentary evidence and all the other evidence in the case, more credible than the testimony of the vitreoretinal surgeon, and defendant’s expert witnesses. The differing testimony and conclusions on causation given by defendant’s witnesses do not require a different outcome.”

Attorneys for the parties in this case did not return messages seeking comment.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

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