Maryland Clinic Meningitis Cases Stay in Boston

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A federal judge has ruled that nine suits filed against a Maryland clinic by victims of a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak will remain in her Boston, Mass. courtroom.
In a brief order issued today U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel ruled that the suits against the Box Hill Surgery Center in Abingdon, Md. will proceed to trial in Boston.
Lawyers for the clinic had asked to have the cases sent back to Maryland for trial, but lawyers for the plaintiffs asked Zobel to keep them in her court.
The Box Hill suits are among dozens filed in the wake of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that sickened 778 patients, killing 77 of them.
Zobel also must decide whether dozens of other similar cases will be sent back to the states where they originated. Although 116 Tennessee cases were set to take place in Boston, those have been put on hold with word of a nearly finalized settlement with the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center in Nashville, Tenn.
In her order Zobel asked lawyers in the Box Hill cases to report back to her by July 8 with a revised schedule moving the cases forward.
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