PAIN MANAGEMENT DOCTOR’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THIS MEDICAL MALPRACTICE/WRONGFUL DEATH CASE PROPERLY DENIED, THE DOCTOR PRESCRIBED OPIOIDS FOR PLAINTIFF’S DECEDENT, A DRUG ADDICT (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department determined defendant pain-management doctor’s (Kiri’s) motion for summary judgment in this medical malpractice case was properly denied. Kiri allegedly continued to prescribe high-dosage opioids to plaintiff’s decedent knowing that she was an addict. Plaintiff’s decedent died of a drug overdose. Although plaintiff’s decedent used illicit drugs as well, there was a question of fact about the proximate cause of death and whether the death was a foreseeable consequence of prescribing opioids:

Plaintiff’s theory of liability is that Dr. Kiri’s prescription of high-dose opioid pain killers for more than a year, despite the fact that her medical records showed drug use and drug seeking behavior, escalated, enhanced, or encouraged that behavior. An accidental overdose is not an unforeseeable result of prescribing, or over-prescribing, opioid painkillers to a patient who displays signs of addiction … . More specifically, here, decedent’s procurement and use of illicit drugs were not unforeseeable in light of the indicia of addiction or misuse noted in her medical records. Because decedent’s use of illicit drugs was not unforeseeable, her drug use was not an intervening cause and did not amount to a separate act of negligence that independently caused her death. Halloran v Kiri, 2019 NY Slip Op 04769, First Dept 6-13-19