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The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a jury verdict that found a Norwood doctor liable for negligence in a specific type of medical malpractice case known as “loss of chance.”
Loss of chance cases involve instances of negligence that further reduce a patient’s odds of survival, particularly if that patient’s odds are already less than 50 percent.
The court ruling stated that physicians can be held liable for damages where “negligence reduces or eliminates the patient’s prospects for achieving a more favorable medical outcome.”
In the case at issue, the jury had awarded $1 million to the family of a man who died of gastric cancer in 1999. Kimiyoshi Matsuyama, 46, had complained about stomach pains to his doctor for several years before the doctor ordered diagnostic testing that revealed the cancer.
Within months of the diagnosis, Matsuyama died.
“The SJC has finally recognized for the rights of victims of medical malpractice to be compensated for…the loss of that person’s chance to survive a horrible medical condition that should have been properly diagnosed in the first place,” said attorney David Angueira.
(Source: Boston Globe)
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