Medical Negligence

The News Herald
Panama City Florida

Catherine McNaught The News Herald

Six Bay County jurors awarded almost half a million dollars Thursday to a local woman who said she lost the use of her right eye after cataract surgery.

Frances Jones Smith, 68, sued Panama City ophthalmologist Norman I. Meyer, M.D., in January 1995 after she said routine eye surgery left her blind in one eye.

The lawsuit, filed in Bay County Circuit Court, alleged that Meyer “was negligent in his care of (Smith), in that he undertook to perform a cataract operation and thereafter severely damaged her retina causing her to become blind in her right eye.”

“This guy removed a piece of her retina instead of removing the cataract,” said Smith’s attorney, Marcus Michles of Kerrigan, Estess, Rankin & McLeod. Michles said Thursday afternoon that all but $60,000 of the $480,000 verdict was for his client’s pain and suffering.

“The jury did an outstanding job of enduring a lot of medical testimony and did a good job of fairly evaluating the impact that this has had on this lady’s life,” Michles said.

Meyer said Thursday evening that the resolution of the lawsuit was “amicable,” though he would have preferred not going to trial.

“Why put her through all that?,” Meyer said. “It was not my decision: “It was purely the decision of the insurance company. I did not testify all week.” Meyer said that he and Smith remained on good terms, and that he doesn’t believe his Jacksonville-based insurance company will appeal the verdict.

Smith could not be reached for comment Thursday, but Michles said she was satisfied with the outcome.

Michles said Smith, a retired nurse, rejected a $200,000 settlement offer because she felt it undervalued her loss.

These people just said, ‘You’re retired and we blinded you, but you’ve got another (eye) though,” Michles said. “We just felt that it was important for it to go to a jury and that the jury ought to decide what the value of a woman’s eyesight was.”

The jury awarded Smith $60,000 for past and future medical expenses she will incur. Michles said she still must undergo surgery to have the damaged eye removed. “She’s going to have her eyeball removed and have a glass eye put in for the rest of her life,” Michles said.