A California Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court’s summary judgment order and reinstated a wrongful death lawsuit after it concluded that the trial court had improperly thrown out “clear, reasoned” expert testimony.
The Death
In October 2013, Marleny Escobar attended her first prenatal appointment with her ob/gyn, Dr. Azmath Qureshi. She complained of pain with urination and blood in her urine. Her lab tests showed a low white blood cell count and low platelet counts. Dr. Qureshi prescribed her medicine for urinary tract infections.
Over the course of Escobar’s pregnancy, she experienced a fever, a sore throat, congestion, cough, and an earache. Escobar failed to gain weight after her initial prenatal appointment and eventually lost ten pounds. Her urinalysis showed abnormal levels of proteins, ketones, and bilirubin, and her lab results showed that her white blood cell count remained abnormally low. Dr. Qureshi prescribed her an antibiotic and did not order additional lab tests.
In March 2014, Escobar was admitted to the hospital for the early onset of labor. She arrived at the hospital with a fever, an enlarged fatty liver, and gallstones. Her lab work showed that her white blood count was still abnormally low and that she had “severely deranged liver function.”
Escobar gave birth to a healthy son and was transferred to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center where she was treated by Dr. Jennifer McNulty. Within a week, Escobar’s new physician was considering hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare immunodeficiency disease, as a diagnosis. Within days, Escobar began treatment for HLH. Escobar died on April 17, 2014. Her autopsy confirmed a diagnosis of HLH and a fungal infection throughout her body.
Superior Court
Two years after Escobar’s death, her husband and sons sued Dr. Qureshi for wrongful death. The lawsuit alleged that Dr. Qureshi’s failure to investigate Escobar’s HLH symptoms fell below the standard of care and led to her premature death.
The court dismissed the husband’s claims on the grounds that his case was time-barred. Dr. Qureshi then filed a motion for summary judgment against the remaining plaintiffs, arguing that they failed to prove causation. Dr. Qureshi claimed that Escobar’s symptoms did not meet the criteria for HLH while she was pregnant, therefore he could not have diagnosed her and given her treatment.
The plaintiffs submitted testimony from obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Paul Sinkhorn, opining that if Dr. Quereshi had investigated Escobar’s symptoms while she was pregnant, it was more likely than not that she would have survived. The trial court did not admit Dr. Sinkhorn’s testimony because he did not have any experience treating patients with HLH. The court also decided that the testimonyt did not raise a triable issue of fact about causation because Dr. Sinkhorn did not opine that Escobar’s “chance of survival would have been greater than 50{d61575bddc780c1d4ab39ab904bf25755f3b8d1434703a303cf443ba00f43fa4} if Defendants had acted differently.”
The trial court granted Dr. Qureshi’s motion for summary judgment.
California Court of Appeals
The plaintiffs appealed to the California Court of Appeals. On appeal, the Court of Appeals determined that the trial court abused its discretion by striking Dr. Sinkhorn’s testimony. The appeals court noted Dr. Sinkhorn’s more than thirty years of experience working as an obstetrician-gynecologist, the time he served as a professor at several local medical schools, and the time he spent reviewing Escobar’s medical records. The court determined that he was qualified to testify about whether the defendants’ acts or omissions caused Escobar’s death.
The Court of Appeals also stated that Dr. Sinkhorn’s declaration was sufficient to raise a triable issue of fact as to whether Escobar’s chance of survival would have been more than 50{d61575bddc780c1d4ab39ab904bf25755f3b8d1434703a303cf443ba00f43fa4} if Dr. Qureshi had taken the proper steps to investigate her symptoms. The court reversed the summary judgment order.
