Unanimous Defense Verdict in Orthopedic Surgery Case

HPM&B Partners Michael Sullivan and Christina Reinle obtained a unanimous defense verdict in a Supreme Court, Nassau County medical malpractice case on May 27, 2026, after a three-week trial.

Plaintiff’s decedent was 63 years old when he underwent total knee replacement surgery in August 2018 performed by the defendant orthopedic surgeon at the defendant hospital.  Less than four weeks after surgery, the patient was diagnosed at another institution with an infection inside the replaced knee.  He was transferred back to the defendant hospital, and he underwent multiple surgical procedures on the knee while being treated aggressively by the defendants with antibiotics during the course of a prolonged hospitalization.  The decedent’s infection was cleared by early 2019 but the knee became infected again in November 2019, and the decedent underwent an above-the-knee amputation of the infected leg.  He died in February 2020 of unrelated causes.

The decedent’s estate claimed the defendants negligently failed to timely diagnose the original infection and allowed it to progress to the point that extensive surgical treatment was required but unsuccessful, and the infection ultimately resulted in the need for an amputation.  A Nassau County jury credited the testimony of the defendant surgeon and his experts in Orthopedic Surgery and Infectious Diseases, and they found unanimously that there was no basis or opportunity for the defendants to make an earlier diagnosis of the infection, and their treatment of plaintiff’s decedent was within the standard of care in all respects.