Some Meningitis Claims Dismissed

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Some but not all of the claims filed against a Maryland clinic by survivors of a woman who died in the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak have been dismissed by a federal judge in Boston, Mass.
In a five-page ruling issued this week, U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel wrote that the remaining charges, including some negligence claims and violations of Maryland's consumer protection statutes will have to be decided by a jury.
The suit, one of the few remaining to be resolved, was filed by survivors of Brenda Lee Rozek who died on Sept. 16, 2012, 16 days after she was injected with  a fungus laden spinal steroid at the Box Hill Surgery Center in Abingdon, Md.
Rozek's death was one of the 25 cited in the indictment of owners and employees of the now defunct New England Compounding Center, the Massachusetts company that sold the contaminated drugs to the Maryland clinic. Though federal prosecutors charged that Rozek's death and 24 others amounted to second degree murder, two separate juries have rejected that claim.
In her ruling Zobel dismissed claims in the Rozek suit that the clinic and Dr. Ritu Bhambani violated provisions of the Massachusetts consumer protection statutes. She noted that all the major events in the case took place in Maryland.
She also dismissed claims for punitive damages noting that the plaintiffs had conceded they had no evidence that Bhambani had acted with malice.
"Because plaintiffs stipulated that there is no evidence of actual malice in this case, they may not recover punitive damages," the ruling states.
She said issues such as whether the clinic should have exercised due diligence in checking on the company selling the drugs. She said other issues such as a claim for medical expenses would be decided at a later date.
Several hundred victims of the 2012 outbreak have filed suits against the medical providers who injected them with tainted steroids. Dozens of those cases have been resolved. Some 76 patients died in the outbreak while more than 750 were sickened.
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