Court Opinion

ID: 9878670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-27 17:31:38.028387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:47:39.232146
License: Public Domain

JORDAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment. Given Supreme Court precedent on the accrual of a cause of action under the FTCA, see, e.g., United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111, 118, 100 S.Ct. 352, 62 L.Ed.2d 259 (1979), I agree with the court that we must affirm the summary judgment entered against Mr. Echemendia. But it seems to me that, when surgery is required for the purported medical malpractice of prison doctors, there is a good argument that the inmate’s claim should accrue on the date of the surgery. Until the prisoner actually undergoes surgery, and knows what was done during surgery, it is impossible for him to know whether the information he was given before the procedure (that he has a problem, and that the problem requires surgical intervention) is correct. There are certainly times when doctors, having started a planned surgical procedure, do not carry through or change course because of something they find during the procedure.