NYS Physicians May Be Sued For Improper Treatment of Vaccine Complications If Timely Filed
This case involves an infant, then age 13, who was given two TDaP vaccines in 2006 by her pediatrician. After receiving the vaccines, the infant developed muscular weakness (inflammatory myopathy), her condition deteriorated and she received care from three other pediatric defendants in the following months of 2006. Ultimately, the infant developed quadriplegia and turned 18 in 2010. A civil action was untimely filed by the now adult plaintiff in 2016 against the doctors and the medical centers where they worked, alleging that the doctors were negligent in their treatment of the infant after she received the vaccines.
However, under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), individuals are not allowed to bring a civil action for damages exceeding $1,000 against "vaccine administrators or manufacturers" for injuries or deaths related to the administration of a vaccine. The VICP only considers doctors who administer the vaccine or do so negligently as "vaccine administrators." The plaintiff timely filed a VICP claim against the first pediatrician who administered the vaccines.
In this case, the moving defendants (the subsequent treating pediatricians and Montefiore Medical Center, Columbia Cornell Network Physicians, Inc., and NY Presbyterian Hospital - Weill Cornell Medical Center) are not considered vaccine administrators because they did not administer the vaccines to the infant but rather provided post-vaccination care. Therefore, the VICP is not applicable in this case and the statute of limitations for the civil action had not been tolled by the timely filing of the VICP claim.
The complaint against the moving defendants was dismissed as untimely (statute of limitations for medical malpractice had expired years earlier) by the Supreme Court of Bronx County, and this decision was affirmed on appeal by the First Department on December 29, 2022. Batish v Gandhi, 2022 NY Slip Op 07494
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