Talley v. Danek Medical, Inc.
| Decision Date | 12 July 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-1884,98-1884 |
| Parties | , Janet Diane TALLEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DANEK MEDICAL, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Richmond. Robert R. Merhige, Jr., Senior District Judge. (CA-95-816-3)
ARGUED: Martin Joseph McGetrick, Bradford Manson Young, CHANDLER, FRANKLIN & O'BRYAN, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. ON BRIEF: George Lehner, PEPPER HAMILTON, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Appellee. Gary J. Spahn, Dabney L. Carr, IV, MAYS & VALENTINE, L.L.P., Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.
Before ERVIN, NIEMEYER, and KING, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Judge Ervin and Judge King joined.
Janet Talley contends that her doctor's use, in a spinal fusion operation on her, of a Dyna-Lok Device, an internal fixation device manufactured by Danek Medical, Inc., caused her injury because orthopedic screws became loose and a bone graft in her spine did not properly fuse. In her complaint against Danek, she alleged breach of warranty, negligence, and fraud arising from Danek's marketing of the Dyna-Lok Device for a use not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Danek's negligent design of and inadequate warning about the device.
The district court granted Danek summary judgment on the grounds (1) that Talley failed to present the court with any admissible evidence of negligence and (2) that Danek's warranty and fraud duties did not extend to Talley because of the "learned intermediary" doctrine, limiting in certain circumstances a manufacturer's duty to warning only doctors and not their patients. See Talley v. Danek Medical, Inc., 7 F.Supp.2d 725 (E.D.Va.1998). After considering Talley's arguments on appeal, we affirm, although through a somewhat different analysis.
In response to Janet Talley's complaints of sharp pain in her lower back, Dr. Andrea Wynn, an orthopedic surgeon in Winchester, Virginia, performed surgery on Talley to remove a small herniated disc. When Talley's condition failed to improve, Dr. Wynn referred Talley to Dr. Hallett Mathews, a well-known surgeon and professor in Richmond, Virginia, specializing in spinal surgery. Dr. Mathews had performed approximately 400 spinal surgeries using internal fixation devices, such as the Dyna-Lok Device.
In February 1992, Dr. Mathews removed the L4-5 disc from Talley's back and inserted a bone graft to promote fusion. He did not insert an internal fixation device. Despite this surgery and subsequent physical therapy, Talley's back condition did not improve. After conducting a myelogram to identify other problems that might have contributed to Talley's pain, Dr. Mathews concluded that additional back surgery, including implantation of an internal fixation device, would be necessary.
Prior to Talley's third operation in October 1993, Dr. Mathews provided Talley with a pamphlet describing the Dyna-Lok Device, a surgical implant device used to immobilize parts of the spine as part of spinal fusion surgery. The device was manufactured and distributed by Danek Medical, Inc. Talley read the pamphlet and also glanced over a consent form before signing it. During the operation, Dr. Mathews removed disc material from Talley's spine to decompress the L4-5 and L5-S1 area, and he successfully implanted the Dyna-Lok Device. As after her previous surgeries, Talley was instructed to avoid excessive exercise or movement for several weeks, to wear a back brace when not in bed, and generally to avoid overusing her back so as not to loosen the screws on the Dyna-Lok Device.
Sometime after her third surgery, Talley began experiencing pain again in her back as well as in other areas. Dr. Mathews concluded that due to "excess motion" or "bad bone quality" or Talley's "not adhering to the guidelines after surgery," the bone screw interface had loosened and the loose screws had become a possible "pain generator." Accordingly, Dr. Mathews recommended further back surgery either to tighten the screws and to reattach the Dyna-Lok Device to the spine or to remove the device. Although Talley now states that she then understood the purpose of this fourth surgery to be the removal of the device, the consent form which she signed at the time authorized Dr. Mathews to perform "lumbar exploration of L4-5 with possible removal of Dyna-Lok (Titanium) fixation and possible regrafting with iliac crest autograft."
In February 1995, Dr. Mathews performed the fourth operation on Talley's back. Finding the Dyna-Lok Device intact but the screws loose, Dr. Mathews attempted to fuse the vertebrae again by grafting more bone fragments and reattaching the Dyna-Lok Device with larger screws. After surgery, Talley was again instructed to minimize physical activity and to wear a back brace. Although Talley appeared to be rehabilitating successfully for several months following surgery, in late 1995 she began to experience pain again. Dr. Mathews attributed the pain to over-activity and the development of arachnoiditis, a nerve injury common among patients who have had multiple back surgeries.
Since her fourth operation, Talley has been examined by other doctors who have offered differing opinions as to the stability of the Dyna-Lok Device and the screws. A doctor at Georgetown University Hospital advised Talley that the Dyna-Lok Device was not loose; a doctor at Johns Hopkins University Hospital advised her that the device was loose. Although Talley has been advised to have the Dyna-Lok device removed, she consistently refuses such an operation without a guarantee that it will not worsen her condition.
During the period that Talley was Dr. Mathews' patient, Dr. Mathews served as a consultant to Danek, designing endoscopes and assisting in efforts to secure FDA approval for the use of the endoscopes in the spine--work that is unrelated to the use of internal fixation devices. As part of this consulting arrangement, Dr. Mathews' office served as a "receptorship site" to teach surgeons surgical techniques involving both Danek products and other products. For these consulting services, Dr. Mathews received an annual consulting fee of $250,000, a travel budget, research funds, and 25,000 shares of stock in Danek Group, Inc., the parent of Danek Medical, Inc. Despite his affiliation with Danek, Dr. Mathews has used internal fixation devices other than the Dyna-Lok Device. According to Dr. Mathews, the system he uses depends on the individual patient--specifically, "the length of the fusion, the angulation of the spine, or what kind of balance you have to restore." But Dr. Mathews explains that he prefers the Dyna-Lok Device because it is "user-friendly," "one of the cheapest systems out there cost wise," "predictable," and "easy to teach." Following Talley's surgeries, Dr. Mathews has continued to use the Dyna-Lok Device in spinal fusion surgeries.
In October 1995, several months after her fourth operation, Talley filed this action in the district court against Danek, relying on diversity jurisdiction and alleging negligence, breach of warranty, and fraud under Virginia law. In November 1995, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred this case to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for Multidistrict Litigation discovery, and in December 1997, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania remanded the case to the district court. Following Danek's motion for summary judgment, the district court entered summary judgment in favor of Danek on all counts. This appeal followed.
Talley contends first that she presented sufficient evidence of Danek's negligence to withstand a motion for summary judgment and entitle her to a jury trial. She maintains that there is a genuine dispute of material fact over whether Danek violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act ("FDCA"), 21 U.S.C. § 301 et seq., and that a violation of the FDCA constitutes negligence per se in Virginia. She also maintains that she presented sufficient expert testimony to establish negligence independent of the alleged FDCA violation. We address these theories in order.
The essential elements of a negligence claim in Virginia, as elsewhere, are (1) the identification of a legal duty of the defendant to the plaintiff; (2) a breach of that duty; and (3) injury to the plaintiff proximately caused by the breach. See Locke v. Johns-Manville Corp., 275 S.E.2d 900, 904 (Va.1981). Under Virginia law, "[t]he standard of conduct to which a party must conform to avoid being negligent is that of a reasonable man under like circumstances." Moore v. Virginia Transit Co., 188 Va. 493, 50 S.E.2d 268, 271 (Va.1948) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
The standard of conduct of a "reasonable man" in a negligence case is generally determined by a jury on a case-by-case basis. Under the doctrine of negligence per se, however, the violation of a statute or ordinance can constitute a violation of the "reasonable man" standard as a matter of law. See Butler v. Frieden, 208 Va. 352, 158 S.E.2d 121, 122 (Va.1967). Thus, in negligence per se cases, the courts "adopt as the standard of conduct of a reasonable man the requirements of a legislative enactment or an administrative regulation." Restatement (Second) of Torts § 286 (1965); see also Butler, 158 S.E.2d at 122.
An example illustrates the doctrine's application. If the statutory speed limit on a road is 35 m.p.h. and the defendant drives 40 m.p.h., causing him to collide with the plaintiff pedestrian and to injure her, the plaintiff may establish the breach element of her negligence claim by pointing to the violation of the speed limit. The defendant is barred from putting on evidence, specific to his situation, that driving at 40 mph. on that particular road was reasonable because the ...
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