The plaintiffs, Rohini Meka and her husband, Suresh Chirumamilla, filed suit on September 18, 2020, in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. They named as defendants Dr. Hani Haddad, Valley Women’s Health Group, LLC, and Jane/John Doe, asserting various Massachusetts law claims stemming from Meka’s treatment during the labor and delivery of her son, Pranav Chirumamilla, including their claim that Dr. Haddad, in violation of Massachusetts law, failed to obtain Meka’s informed consent before performing a forceps-assisted delivery of her son because he failed to instruct Meka of the risks associated with that procedure prior to the operation. The claim alleged that the use of the procedure resulted in Meka suffering a pelvic fracture.
On November 21, 2023, the defendants filed a Motion to Strike Expert Testimony of Plaintiffs’ Experts (“Motion to
Strike”) on the ground that the defendants had attempted on multiple occasions to schedule depositions of the plaintiffs’ experts but that the plaintiffs, in violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) 26(b), had neither offered any dates for the depositions nor made “any good faith effort to make their experts available for deposition.”
On December 11, 2023, the District Court granted the Motion to Strike, noting that, under the local rules, the plaintiffs’ opposition to the Motion to Strike was due on December 5, 2023, but that “no opposition or request for an extension was filed.”
On March 28, 2024, the District Court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The District Court concluded that the plaintiffs could not prove any of their claims without supporting expert medical testimony. The District Court also declined plaintiffs’ motion to vacate its order striking the testimony of the plaintiffs’ experts, which the District Court treated as a motion for reconsideration of that order.
The plaintiffs argued on appeal that a reasonable juror could find for them on the lack of informed consent claim even in the absence of supporting expert testimony because deposition testimony establishes that “Dr. Haddad failed to offer them a cesarean section and failed to disclose any risks (either maternal or fetal) associated with a forceps (vaginal) delivery,” and that expert testimony is not required to establish causation because, based on Meka’s medical records and testimony that will be introduced at trial, a “jury [would be] able to reasonably conclude that the [pelvic] fracture occurred during [the] forceps delivery.”
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit stated in its October 9, 2025 Opinion: “the plaintiffs do not dispute that, under Massachusetts law, “a physician is not required to inform a patient of remote risks,” Precourt, 481 N.E.2d at 1149; see also Kissinger v. Lofgren, 836 F.2d 678, 681-82 (1st Cir. 1988) (“[R]emote [risks] . . . are immaterial as a matter of law.”). And we do not see how, without expert testimony, a reasonable juror could find that Meka’s injury — a pelvic fracture — constituted more than a “negligible risk” of a forceps-assisted delivery, id. at 681, as we cannot see how the nature of the risk of that occurrence for the procedure in question is common knowledge, cf. McMahon v. Finlayson, 632 N.E.2d 410, 412-13 (Mass. App. Ct. 1994) (stating materiality of possible injury is question for jury once apprised of risk of injury) … none of the other precedent or legal provisions plaintiffs invoke address the question of whether expert testimony is needed for them to meet their burden to show that the medical procedure in question here posed a more-than-negligible risk of a pelvic fracture. We thus see no basis for reversing the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants on the sole claim that is at issue in this appeal.”
Source Meka v. Haddad, No. 24-1425.
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