Eight cataract patients who claim that contaminated viscoelastic caused their post-op injuries may be able to sue the manufacturer in Los Angeles, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The elderly patients, all residents of the city of Monterrey, Mexico, underwent cataract procedures between Oct. 11 and Oct. 16, 2007, at the hands of an ophthalmic surgeon with 25 years' experience in the specialty.
Hours after the surgeries, each contracted bacterial endophthalmitis. In 3 of the cases, patients required removal of the operative eye. The other 5 lost sight in the eye. Each patient had been treated with Advanced Medical Optics' Healon viscoelastic product. According to court records, the product shipped to the surgeon was later determined to be contaminated.
Through their attorneys, the 8 patients sued AMO in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, the region where the company (now known as Abbott Medical Optics) is located. The district court dismissed the case at AMO's request that a case involving surgery performed in Mexico would be more suitably heard in a Mexican court.
The patients appealed their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco while at the same time filing suit in a Mexican court. The Mexican court declined jurisdiction over the case, since the nation's laws doesn't give it authority over a company that isn't incorporated there.
This new development led the federal appeals court to order the trial court to reconsider its earlier dismissal in light of the Mexican court's action. The trial court's decision may have been correct at the time, the appeals court judges wrote in their April 7 ruling. However, "when intervening developments in a foreign jurisdiction ... could leave plaintiffs without an available forum in which to bring their claims, it is appropriate to remand the matter back to the district court so it can reconsider its decision based upon updated information."
"We look forward to moving the case forward," said the patients' attorney, Edward C. Snyder of Castillo Snyder in San Antonio, Texas, "and getting some justice for the patients, each of whom lost sight in an eye."
An attorney for AMO did not immediately return a request for comment.
David Bernard
