Attorney Scott D. Camassar has filed a notice of claim with the Connecticut Claims Commissioner in order to file suit on behalf of a 26-year-old woman against the State of Connecticut, University of Connecticut Health System, John Dempsey Hospital and Malini Iyer, M.D. for injuries during a surgery last year to remove a small amount of excess tissue under the woman's arm.

 

On February 27, 2008, she underwent surgery for tissue excision, during which Dr. Iyer identified a "small tubular structure that appeared to be a nerve....  The exact nature of this nerve was not known ..., " but nevertheless the nerve was cut and removed.  Only after the woman returned to Dr. Iyer complaining of post-operative pain and numbness was she informed that the doctor may have cut a sensory nerve during the surgery.  Subsequent examination by a neurologist confirmed that she has sensory neuropathy in the distribution of the medial cutaneous nerve in her upper arm, which causes her residual pain and numbness affecting her left upper arm and occasionally her chest.

 
An expert hired by the Law Firm of Stephen M. Reck concluded that there was a deviation from the standard of care on the part of Dr. Iyer in the care and treatment of the claimant, in failing to obtain informed consent and failing to protect regional neural structures during the course of the surgery, and that this negligence caused the woman's injuries.

Prof. Andrew Popper of American University, Washington College of Law, writes: "There is no mystery regarding the flood of dangerous and even deadly consumer products manufactured abroad and sold in the United States. Foreign manufacturers are not naïve. They understand the effect of state and federal laws that limit or eliminate tort liability, known, oddly enough, as tort reform. They understand the difficulty of securing a product liability judgment against a domestic wholesaler or manufacturer - and they understand that as foreign producers, they are not only shielded by tort reform but also protected by the complex web of laws, policies, and practices that make it difficult if not impossible to sue successfully foreign manufacturers in domestic courts. Stripped of the incentive value the tort system provided, it should come as no surprise that domestic consumers have been exposed to tens of millions of defective products produced by foreign suppliers." Read his white paper, Defective Foreign Products in the United States: Issues and Discussion. 

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