New York Partner Brian Heermance and Associate Chris Keenoy prevailed on their motion for summary judgment in a medical malpractice case. The plaintiff alleged that our client, an optometrist, deviated from the standard of care by failing to use an Optical Coherence Tomography machine as part of his examination based upon the state of her vision and her objective complaints. Further, the plaintiff alleged that our optometrist failed to diagnose a macular hole in her left eye that ultimately resulted in her near blindness. She claimed over $3 Million in damages.
We established, with an expert’s affidavit, that given the optometrist’s objective findings and the plaintiff’s subjective complaints, his decision not to use the OCT machine did not represent a departure from good and accepted medical standards. Further, they argued that even if it could be seen as a departure, the plaintiff could not establish causation based upon her subsequent treatment records that established that there was no macular hole present in her left eye over one year after the optometrist had last treated her. Therefore, there could not have been a macular hole for the optometrist to identify and diagnose one year earlier. The Court agreed, granted our motion for summary judgment, and dismissed the plaintiff’s complaint in its entirety.
