Indiana Medical Malpractice Act

The Indiana Court of Appeals recently affirmed a trial court’s denial of a defendant’s motion for judgment on the evidence and motion to correct error in a medical malpractice informed consent case in which a jury awarded significant damages to the plaintiff arising out of a nerve injury during surgery. The patient in Glock v. Kennedy underwent five surgeries to his left hand, including amputations to his left index finger, which were performed by a surgeon after the patient suffered a crush injury to his left hand. During the fourth surgery, the surgeon caused a nerve injury to the patient’s thumb.

While the medical review panel formed to review the case pursuant to the Indiana Medical Malpractice Act found that the surgeon met the applicable standard of care and his conduct was not a factor of the resultant damages, the panel found there was a material issue of fact, not requiring expert opinion, bearing on liability for consideration by the court or jury as to whether the surgeon provided appropriate informed consent before the fourth surgery.

In order to prevail on a claim asserting lack of informed consent in a medical care case, a patient must prove (1) nondisclosure of required information; (2) actual damage… (3) resulting from the risks of which the patient was not informed; (4) cause in fact, which is to say that the plaintiff would have rejected the medical treatment if he had known the risk; and (5) that reasonable persons, if properly informed, would have rejected the proposed treatment. The plaintiff in Glock presented testimony from one of the medical review panel members stating that discussion of the risks of the procedure performed should include nerve injury and reoccurrence of pain or the lack of eliminating the pain. Contrary to the surgeon’s testimony, the patient testified that he was never told the likelihood of success of the procedure in which the nerve injury occurred was only 75% and that the surgeon never explained any risk of the nerves being close together between the index finger and thumb. The patient’s stepsister also testified that the patient was not told about the risk of nerve damage.