Burks v. Brown

Oliver Burks (plaintiff) had robotic surgery to remove a kidney. During the surgery, Dr. Hunter Brown (defendant) operated the surgical robot from across the room, while Dr. Robert Emery (defendant) applied a handheld vascular stapler to Burks directly. According to both doctors, during the surgery, the stapler “lurched forward” and almost completely severed a key aorta in Burks’s abdomen. This cut caused catastrophic blood loss, which eventually led to Burks’s death. Burks’s estate (plaintiff) sued both doctors for medical malpractice. It was undisputed that the cut was unintentional, but only the doctors knew what had actually happened during the surgery. To prove negligence, the estate invoked the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. Under this doctrine, if the aorta ordinarily would not have been cut unless one or both doctors acted negligently, then the injury’s existence was circumstantial evidence that one or both doctors had acted negligently. The doctors moved for summary judgment, arguing that res ipsa loquitur did not apply because it was possible that the cut had been caused by a stapler malfunction rather than the doctors’ negligence. In response, the estate’s expert acknowledged that a stapler malfunction was a theoretically possible cause but found no evidence suggesting that a malfunction had occurred. In the expert’s opinion, because the stapler could not move on its own, the lurching movement must have been caused by either Emery negligently mishandling the stapler or Brown negligently striking Emery’s hand with the robotic arm. The trial court found that a nonnegligent stapler malfunction was a possible explanation for the injury and, therefore, that res ipsa loquitur did not apply. Without a negligence inference, the estate could not prove its claim, and the court granted summary judgment for the doctors. The estate appealed.