Attorneys Ashley Griffin and Dave Johnson have secured summary judgment in favor of an Erie County, PA primary care physician who was claimed to have caused the death of a 45-year-old woman by prescribing a combination of pain medications. The decedent was a long-time patient with a lengthy history of intractable headaches.
The patient’s last visit with her doctor was a day before she died when morphine had been prescribed, and she was told to stop other medications. The patient was found dead in her home the next day. Although an autopsy was not performed, the coroner’s report blamed her death on “combined drug toxicity.”
In the suit, plaintiffs were seeking both compensatory and punitive damages. The motion for summary judgment was based on the failure to identify expert testimony supportive of plaintiff’s claims.