A New York orthodontist who was sued following the death of a patient who developed tongue cancer has been found not guilty of negligence, according to a story in the Staten Island Advance.
Stephanie Hare of Annadale was 19 when a cancerous lesion was detected on her tongue in April 2004. Despite having surgery to remove most of her tongue and undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, she died seven months later.
Hare's family sued her orthodontist, Michael J. Donato, DDS, for her death, alleging that he failed to detect the lesion during a 2003 exam. However, on March 16, a jury in state Supreme Court, St. George, found that Dr. Donato was not negligent and had followed standard dental practices when he examined Hare on December 19, 2003.
"Stephanie's death was not anybody's fault," Dr. Donato's lawyer, Douglas Fitzmorris, told jurors in his summation. "Stephanie died of cancer. Dr. Donato is not to blame. The whole specter of this lesion being missed by Dr. Donato is not what happened. There was no deviation from accepted practice."
The family had been seeking a $2.3 million award for pain and suffering if the jury found Dr. Donato liable.
"We were able to convince the jury, and, hopefully, the family, that Stephanie's death was the direct result of the extraordinarily aggressive and rare nature of the cancer and not the result of the care rendered by Dr. Donato or any other medical or dental provider," Fitzmorris told the Staten Island Advance.
