On October 19, 2014, the Plaintiffs filed a Pennsylvania medical malpractice action against the defendant hospital, under a theory of respondeat superior, to hold the hospital vicariously liable for the alleged negligence of its physician
employees, Kanli Jiang, M.D. Victoria Myers, M.D., Amanda Rhodes-Michael, M.D., and Maria Evidente, M.D.. Dr. Jiang
and Dr. Evidente were also members of Abington Primary Women’s Healthcare Group, which was owned by the hospital. The Plaintiffs alleged that during the wife’s Cesarean section surgery, the hospital’s employees failed to properly inspect and repair her left uterine artery, which was cut or transected, and this failure allowed that artery to bleed into the wife’s abdomen, causing hypovolemic shock.
The Plaintiffs further claimed the hospital’s employees failed to timely move the wife to the operating room while her status was deteriorating, which caused her to go into cardiac arrest and required the emergency removal of her uterus.
The Pennsylvania medical malpractice jury found: (1) Dr. Jiang’s conduct fell below the applicable standard of care; and (2) her negligence was the factual cause of harm to the Plaintiffs. The jury awarded $5,500,000 to the wife for pain and suffering, and $2,500,000 to the husband for loss of consortium. The hospital appealed.
The Superior Court of Pennsylvania, in its non-precedential decision dated December 6, 2024, “affirm[ed] the
judgment entered in favor of the Plaintiffs and against Hospital.” The Pennsylvania appellate court stated, “We determine the record supports the jury’s verdict and the trial court’s denial of JNOV. See Mazzie, 257 A.3d at 87. Contrary to Hospital’s assertions, we agree with the trial court that Dr. Elliott properly testified as to the applicable standards of care regarding: the visualization, palpation, and ligation for any bleeding arteries during a C-section; and, when the patient exhibits signs of shock, the timely investigation for the source of any bleeding.”
“With respect to causation, Hospital’s arguments go to the weight of the evidence — which were properly for the jury, as finder of fact, to resolve … Dr. Jiang stated that she could not recall “specifically” whether she palpated Wife’s left uterine artery in this case, but Hospital emphasizes Dr. Jiang’s trial testimony, that she palpates and visualizes the arteries in every single case, and therefore she had to have done it in this case … Similarly, it was the jury’s province to weigh Dr. Evidente’s post-operation report, which described the left uterine artery as “transected completely,” with any repudiation of that term in her trial testimony … the jury was to weigh all of this evidence against the opinions of both parties’ expert witnesses: Dr. Elliott’s reliance on Dr. Evidente’s report and conclusion that the cause of bleeding was that the artery was “transected” during the C-section, and Dr. Montgomery’s opinion that Wife’s artery instead spontaneously ruptured sometime after the C-section. This Court may not substitute our judgment, and we determine the trial evidence of record supports the jury’s verdict.”