Physical Therapist Cannot Opine As To The Negligence Of A Chiropractor: In an Indiana medical malpractice case against a chiropractor who allegedly injured a patient, the Court of Appeals of Indiana (“Indiana Appellate Court”) stated in its December 14, 2022 Memorandum Decision: “Here, in an attempt to establish a genuine issue of material fact on the question of medical causation, Goodwin submitted the affidavit of Hillebrand, a physical therapist. Goodwin claims that Hillebrand was qualified to opine on whether Toney’s treatment of Darlene caused her to fracture her C7 vertebra or made the chance of that fracture more likely. But we conclude that those are complex medical questions requiring expert testimony. Hillebrand is a physical therapist; he is not a physician and he is not licensed to practice medicine. He is therefore not qualified to render an opinion as to medical causation here, and the trial court properly struck Hillebrand’s affidavit.”
The Underlying Facts
On October 1, 2018, the plaintiff’s decedent (“plaintiff”) visited the defendant chiropractor who did an adjustment with a combination of electrical stimulation and weights. The plaintiff experienced a sudden onset of neck pain, weakness, and paresthesia of her 4th and 5th fingers on her left hand. However, the plaintiff did not immediately see a medical doctor. Instead, she returned to the defendant chiropractor on October 3, described her pain as “a 10,” and continued treatment with the chiropractor.
The next day, the plaintiff met with a physician regarding her pain who ordered an MRI of her cervical spine that showed “a 40% compression fracture” at the C7 vertebra “as well as evidence of metastatic disease at [the] C6, C7, T1,
and T2” vertebrae. He diagnosed the plaintiff with a “compression fracture of [the] cervical spine; cancer metastatic to bone; and cervicalgia. and referred her to a neurosurgeon, who recommended surgery. After the surgery, the plaintiff had four weeks of radiation therapy but died two months later.
An Indiana Medical Review Panel unanimously agreed that the chiropractor failed to comply with the appropriate
standard of care in his treatment of the plaintiff’s pain, yet the panel was unable to render an opinion as to whether the conduct complained of was or was not a factor in the plaintiff’s claim for damages.
The plaintiff filed her Indiana medical malpractice complaint in court after which the defendant chiropractor submitted his experts’ affidavits that stated that the care and treatment provided to the plaintiff by the defendant chiropractor did not cause the injuries and/or harm as alleged. In response, the plaintiff submitted her physical therapist expert’s affidavit that stated that the defendant chiropractor had failed to render appropriate care and treatment to the plaintiff and such “failure to properly examine, diagnose, order diagnostic testing, and property treat the condition presented . . . caused or contributed to her injuries, specifically the fracturing of her C7 vertebra and subsequent pain and suffering[,] or at least delayed appropriate care.”
The Indiana Appellate Court stated that “questions of medical causation of a particular injury are questions of science necessarily dependent on the testimony of physicians and surgeons learned in such matters.”
Source Goodwin v. Toney, Memorandum Decision 22A-PL-1532.
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