On November 6, 2017, in
Vance v. Okaloosa-Walton Urology, P.A., No. 1D16-4272, the Florida Fist DCA reversed a trial court’s dismissal
of the plaintiff’s negligence complaint against a treating physician’s
professional association. The case had been dismissed by the trial court
because the plaintiff had not complied with the medical negligence pre-suit
procedures and had not filed her case within the medical negligence statute
of limitations period. The underlying incident occurred when the plaintiff
attempted to descend from an examination table. She alleged that without
her knowledge the doctor had taken away a portable step that she had used
to get onto the table and had failed to replace it before exiting the
room while she was still on the table. The First DCA concluded that the
case sounded in ordinary negligence rather than medical negligence because
“[j]urors can use their common experiences to evaluate the act of
placing and removing a step used by someone to get on and off a table,
just as they could evaluate the act of pulling a chair out from under
someone about to sit down.”
