Opinion ID: 849142
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the trial court erred in dismissing plaintiff's entire case

Text: Plaintiff alleged in her complaint that defendants' negligent one-year delay in diagnosing her breast cancer caused past and future damages including, inter alia, the need for more invasive medical treatments, emotional trauma, and pain and suffering. Defendants sought a directed verdict on a theory that plaintiff's claim was precluded by subsection 2912a(2). In support of their motion, defendants relied solely on the uncontested expert testimony that the one-year delay in plaintiff's diagnosis and treatment caused her ten-year-survival rate to be reduced from fifty-five percent to fifteen percent. The trial court erred in dismissing plaintiff's entire case on the ground that it was barred by application of subsection 2912a(2). The ten-year-survival-rate statistics say nothing about plaintiff's chances of avoiding the other injuries she allegedly suffered, such as (1) the more invasive medical treatments caused by the one-year delay in her diagnosis, (2) the emotional trauma attributable to her unnecessarily worsened physical condition, and (3) the pain and suffering attributable to her unnecessarily worsened physical condition. Because of these alleged injuries, the trial court should not have dismissed plaintiff's case in its entirety on the basis of subsection 2912a(2). In light of our determination that a living plaintiff may not recover for loss of an opportunity to survive and that plaintiff pleaded a cause of action for her injuries from the more invasive medical procedures she incurred on account of the alleged negligent delay in diagnosis, it was unnecessary for the lower courts to have addressed whether plaintiff had a cause of action solely on the basis of the reduction in her ten-year survival rate. Accordingly, we vacate that portion of the Court of Appeals opinion.