HARRISBURG - An inmate failed to prove that he was given the incorrect medication, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania recently ruled in affirming a lower court’s dismissal of his case against a health care provider and a physician.
Mickey Santos Colon sued Correct Care Solutions LLC (a health care provider for the Department of Corrections) and one of its physicians, Dr. David Roble.
Santos was an inmate at State Correctional Institution-Mahanoy when Roble allegedly gave Colon a prescription that boosted his blood pressure and made him go to the hospital. Colon said he was later told that he was prescribed the wrong medicine.
Colon sued for medical negligence, vicarious liability and corporate negligence. The trial court granted Roble and CCS’s preliminary objections and dismissed the case. The higher court dismissed his appeal.
“Without expert testimony to establish the required standard of care and causation, Colon’s claim for medical negligence against Dr. Roble must fail,” the court said.
Colon argued that an expert was unnecessary.
As for his second count of vicarious liability and corporate negligence against CCS, the court said that the allegations against CCS can’t be validated if Colon couldn’t prove that Roble acted in misconduct to begin with.
"Because Colon is precluded from producing expert testimony based upon his certificate of merit, he cannot establish that he was given the ‘wrong’ medication and, therefore, cannot establish any of the alleged acts of corporate negligence that caused him to receive the ‘wrong’ medication,” the court said.
Judge Christine Fizzano Cannon wrote the opinion. Judges Renée Cohn Jubelirer and Patricia A. McCullough concurred.