McCormick-Gordon v. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center RB

INTRODUCTION
Gerald Gordon was a very sick man with multiple life-threatening
health conditions. According to plaintiffs' own expert, he had only a 50%
chance of surviving his 1999 lung transplant.
Yet plaintiffs claim that he
died because Cedars-Sinai Medical Center supposedly left a "small and
uncomplicated" fragment of a urethral catheter in his body.
Ap311 from its many other problems, plaintiffs' case fails because
their own expert's declaration conclusively established lack of causation.
The expert, Dr. Rifkin, stated that "[a]pproximately 50% oflung
transplantation patients die in the first five years after transplantation."
(CT 99: 16-17.) Since medical malpractice liability requires proof of
causation to a "reasonable medical probability," the 50% chance of death
following a lung transplant negates causation-it cannot be "more likely
than not" that the catheter fragment caused his death. (Bromme v. Pavitt
(1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 1487, 1498.)
And plaintiffs' case does have other problems. The trial court
correctly granted summary judgment, because not only was Dr. Rifkin
unqualified to testify, but his opinions lacked any reasonable basis to show
a breach of the standard of care or causation.
Lack Of Qualifications. Dr. Rifkin had no specialized education or
training in urology, catheter removal or infectious diseases-the topics
about which he opined. Nor did he have any experience with catheters or
treatment of infectious diseases. And neither his basic medical school