Plaintiff Judy Woody appealed from the trial court’s order of judgment dismissing her New Jersey medical malpractrice complaint. Plaintiff had filed a complaint against defendants Horatio Daub, M.D. and Virtua Family Medicine Center, alleging Daub deviated from the standard of care for failing to diagnose plaintiff with diabetic ketoacidosis on May 2, 2016, which ultimately led to her hospitalization from May 3 to 8, 2016.
Background
For the first time in August 2016, plaintiff obtained and reviewed her medical records in a chart from Daub. After reviewing her records and consulting with another physician, plaintiff claimed she learned about her “ongoing diabetic condition” and Daub’s failure to diagnose and treat her for diabetes.
Plaintiff filed suit for medical malpractice on May 24, 2018. Prior to the close of discovery, defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing plaintiff’s complaint was time barred. Plaintiff opposed defendants’ motion. In plaintiff’s
opposing certification, she stated: “It was not until I obtained my medical records in [August 2016] and consulted with a new doctor that I discovered Dr. Daub had failed for years to diagnose/treat diabetes.”
During plaintiff’s subsequent deposition, she testified while hospitalized in May 2016, a hospital doctor told her daughter that plaintiff had been diabetic since 2010. During trial, plaintiff testified that the first time she thought “maybe Dr. Daub didn’t treat [me] appropriately” was while she was in the hospital in May 2016.
The Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division stated in its November 4, 2024 Per Curiam: “Plaintiff argues defendants failed to meet the Rule 4:37-2(b) standard because she did not learn Daub was at fault for her injury until August 2016 and as such, the discovery rule tolled the statute of limitations period until August. We reject plaintiff’s argument and conclude the judge properly granted defendant’s motion for a directed verdict. The judge determined that plaintiff “definitively” testified she learned Daub neither properly treated nor diagnosed her with diabetes while hospitalized in May 2016. Based on the record, plaintiff need not have waited until she obtained the medical records in August 2016 to assess Daub’s standard of care because she was diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis upon admittance into the ICU. Moreover, August 2016 could not reasonably be the commencement date for the statute of limitations because plaintiff testified that she learned that she was diabetic when she first went to the hospital on May 2, 2016, and the hospital physician told plaintiff’s daughter that she had been diabetic since 2010.” Therefore, plaintiff’s New Jersey medical malpractice complaint was not filed within the two-year medical malpractice statute of limitations.
Source Woody v. Daub, M.D., Docket No. A-3564-22.
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