Court completes the dismissal of medical malpractice claim

The family of Daniel Jilek sued Jilek's doctor and clinic after they did not follow their own protocols for treatment of chest pain.  The Court made several rulings about evidence, excluding some standards adopted by the Defendants and other standards adopted by industry organizations.  It also rejected the family's effort to exclude expert witnesses with regard to whose testimony the Defendants failed to provide interrogatory answers.  The jury ultimately ruled the Defendants were not at fault and the family appealed.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the family that certain "industry" standards in the treatment of chest pain emergency visits should be admitted for the jury's consideration and would have sent the case back for a new trial.  The Republican majority of the Supreme Court reversed that decision earlier this year and held that none of the various medical standards cited by the family should be admitted in evidence.  This week, the Court of Appeals put the case to bed permanently, ruling that the trial court did not err in allowing the Defendants' experts to testify despite the inadequacy of their attorneys' interrogatory answers.  The Court held that since the Court limited the witnesses' testimony to the general tenor of a letter sent by defense counsel describing their testimony, the family had suffered no prejudice.

Needless to say, in the politicized environment created by the hyper-activist conservative Republican, special-interest-aligned Supreme Court majority, malpractice victims don't win. The various decisions in this case are found under the caption Estate of Daniel D. Jilek v. Carlin C. Stockson, M.D.