Suit Against Ringside Doctors Dismissed on Statute-of-Limitations Grounds
HPM&B attorney John P. McNaboe successfully moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the widow and the estate of the boxer Beethavean Scottland, who died following a bout on the U.S.S. Intrepid in 2001.
Denise Scottland alleged that two ringside physicians failed their common-law duty to exercise reasonable care by stopping the fatal fight. In the tenth round, George Khalid Jones knocked Mr. Scottland into a coma from which he never recovered.
Mr. McNaboe convinced the Supreme Court, New York County however that the case sounded in medical malpractice not negligence, and that under the shorter statute of limitations for medical malpractice, the claims had expired. The court agreed with our position that the physician defendants were retained as ringside physicians in their capacity as physicians, and they were charged with the duty to exercise reasonable medical care to provide an ongoing medical diagnosis of the boxing participants’ physical condition throughout the match.