Verdicts

Judge Norman A. Mordue of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, deeming the statute of limitations for the filing of medical malpractice actions tolled by a “continuous treatment” provision, denied a doctor's motion for summary judgment that was based on the alleged untimely filing of this medical malpractice action. Estes v. Singh, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88053 (N.D.N.Y. 8/9/11).

In March 2007, the defendant physician performed surgery on the plaintiff, who had been suffering ongoing gastrointestinal problems. Over the next two months the plaintiff followed up with her doctor with further complaints, and he recommended that she remain on a liquid diet and continue to seek treatment from her gastroenterologist. The plaintiff testified that although she was scheduled to return to the defendant doctor eight to 12 weeks after her surgey on May 31, 2007, she could not do so because of transportation and financial problems. She testified that she spoke to the doctor about these problems and that he therefore left her treatment options “open” so that if she needed to come back, she could. About two years later, on April 21, 2009, the plaintiff returned to the defendant doctor at the suggestion of an emergency room physician. The defendant doctor's notes from that visit indicate that the plaintiff was still following the liquid diet he had recommended in 2007, and that she had not tried any change in her medical therapy since then. The plaintiff stated that because the defendant offered her no new help or answers at that 2009 visit, she stopped seeing him. She filed a medical malpractice suit against him on Feb. 26, 2010.