The appellants appealed the dismissal of a medical negligence action arising from gynecological surgery in which sutures injured the patient’s ureter.
The court held that the trial judge misapprehended the evidence concerning the surgeon’s final inspection and failed to apply the only expert evidence addressing the precise operative circumstances, with the result that negligence should have been found.
The court upheld the trial judge’s rejection of causation between the surgery and the patient’s long-term fibromyalgia, but increased general damages for pain and suffering from $20,000 to $28,000 by using the date of the first surgery as the start of compensable harm.
The appeal was allowed, judgment for the plaintiffs was substituted, and the appellants were awarded trial and appeal costs on a party-and-party basis.
