Smith & Nephew argues that a lawsuit filed by the San Diego Chargers team doctor to recover a $2.2 million malpractice loss is preempted by federal law.
Smith & Nephew wants a federal judge in California to toss a lawsuit filed by a doctor who blames a botched hip implantation on the British medical device company.
Dr. David Chao, the team physician for the NFL’s San Diego Chargers franchise, sued Smith & Nephew in the U.S. District Court for Southern California, alleging that inadequate training and faulty surgical scissors for SNN’s Birmingham Hip Resurfacing implant led to the botched surgery on Kathleen Adams in 2007.
Adams sued Chao for negligence, winning a $2.2 million settlement in 2008. Chao wants Smith & Nephew to cover the tab, accusing the company of training him and other doctors “to push the tips of the scissors into tissue in a manner such that the surgeon did not have a view of the tips of the scissor tines (i.e., ‘blind’ cuts),” according to court documents.
