Lee Weatherly and Kristen Thompson fought for their surgeon client for over seven years and, on October 21, 2016, were finally able to force the Plaintiff to dismiss her final remaining claim that the surgeon failed to provide her sufficient informed consent before a breast biopsy that resulted in a punctured lung. The long history of this case first centered around the 2005 Tort Reform Legislation. The York County trial court originally dismissed this case in September of 2009 due to the Plaintiff’s failure to file an expert affidavit contemporaneously with her Notice of Intent to File Suit. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court judge in January 2012 holding that the Notice of Intent Statute and South Carolina Law mandated the filing of a contemporaneous expert affidavit that alleges at least one act of negligence when Plaintiff files Notice of Intent to sue a medical professional. However, the Supreme Court reversed those holdings in October 2014 finding that the general provisions of the 2005 Tort Reform Legislation in South Carolina automatically grant a Plaintiff an additional 45 days to file an expert affidavit in the Notice of Intent phase of the litigation when plaintiff is within 10 days of the expiration of the statute of limitations. These decisions were likely the most talked about case law in the South Carolina medical malpractice world at the time. The case was remanded back to the trial court for further proceedings. In June of 2016, Lee was successful in obtaining summary dismissal of the allegation that his surgeon client negligently performed the needle breast biopsy as a matter of law. And finally, on October 21, 2016, he forced Plaintiff to dismiss the remaining allegations in the case, with absolutely no payments made to anyone on behalf of the Defendant. This was an incredibly hard fought victory on behalf of a surgeon client. Please contact Lee Weatherly at lweatherly@csvl.law for more information.