Lumpkin v. Wayne Hosp.

NEGLIGENT
CREDENTIALING

Lumpkin v. Wayne Hosp.,
No. 1615 (Ohio Ct. App. Jan. 23, 2004)

A patient sued her physician for medical malpractice when,
during the course of an operation to remove her gallbladder, he transected the
common bile duct instead of the cystic duct. She subsequently required surgery
to repair the injury, and was hospitalized for nine days. The plaintiff’s amended
complaint included a claim for negligent credentialing against the hospital,
alleging that the hospital was negligent in its hiring, supervising, training
and retaining of the physician, because it had knowledge of a previous identical
act of negligence by the physician and failed to prevent future acts of negligence
by him. Prior to trial, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed her negligent credentialing
claim against the hospital. A jury found in favor of the physician. The plaintiff
appealed.

The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of a trial
court, holding that it did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of
the prior incident, because the record did not reflect any proffer to show how
the circumstances of the other patient’s surgery were substantially similar
to the circumstances of the plaintiff’s surgery. The court also found that the
prejudicial effect of the inference arising from this evidence outweighed any
legitimate probative value it might have. The appeals court concluded that the
lower court did not abuse its discretion in denying the plaintiff the opportunity
to impeach the physician with his deposition testimony regarding his proctorship,
because that testimony only weakly implicated his credibility, and was unduly
prejudicial to the extent that it suggested the forbidden inference that one
previous, similar bad result implied that the physician was an incompetent surgeon.