Trial begins today, January 10th, with jury selection in Taylor v. Landau, #180100071 (Fourth District Court for Utah County, American Fork Division, Hon. Denise Porter). This is a medical malpractice case in Provo, UT involving a retained ureteral stent.
In February 2015, Dr. Stewart Landau, a Provo urologist, surgically removed a large stone from Timothy Taylor’s left kidney. (An earlier lithotripsy had been unsuccessful.) After the surgery, a ten-inch long ureteral stent was inserted, running from the kidney through the ureter and into the bladder. This was used to help with healing of the kidney.
Plaintiff claims that he was never informed of the stent and that it stayed in place until October 2016, causing many UTIs and other problems. Dr. Landau’s nurse practitioner, Paul Rosser, testified that he did tell Mr. Taylor that there was a stent that needed to be removed, at least according to his discharge instructions.
In any event, Mr. Taylor never returned for stent removal by Dr. Landau. (Typically, a stent like this is taken out two weeks to a month post-operatively.) Mr. Taylor says he never even knew there was a stent inside him until May 2016, when it was discovered by another provider. He questions why anyone not have had a stent removed knowing it was in place, especially after urinary tract infections developed.
Dr. Landau’s clinic did not follow-up on Mr. Taylor either; they say they relied on patients to follow-up as instructed. They do not keep a “stent registry,” a record of emplaced stents used by some facilities to track stents that need to be removed.
Damages alleged are past medical bills of about $100,000, lost wages, and significant non-economic losses for eighteen months of painful and disabling urinary tract infections.
The defense asserts comparative negligence on Mr. Taylor’s part for failing to return as instructed for stent removal, failing to return for or at least advise Dr. Landau of the UTIs, and then delaying the stent removal for some five months after he knew it was still there.
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Counsel for plaintiff: George Tait, George Tait Law.
Counsel for defendants: David C. Epperson and Scott Epperson, Epperson & Owens.
Insurance Carrier: Medical Protective Group
