Psychologist Cleared from Medical Malpractice Case

The plaintiff and his wife participated in couples counseling at the defendant psychology practice, receiving counseling with the co-defendant, an independent contractor of the practice. During the time that they received couples counseling, the plaintiff’s wife filed a federal lawsuit against her former employer. In his complaint, the plaintiff alleged that during his wife’s lawsuit, the co-defendant provided records relating to his treatment with her without his consent in response to a valid court-ordered subpoena issued to the practice requesting his wife’s treatment records.

The plaintiff alleged that the production of the records caused damage to his reputation in the community. He further alleged that the production of the records caused his symptoms related to his pre-existing emotional issues to increase. The plaintiff also claimed that he lost various employment and economic opportunities as a result of the dissemination of the records. The plaintiff did not produce any expert reports to support his damages claim, instead relying on his own self-serving testimony and inadmissible hearsay evidence and testimony to support his damages claim.

We filed a motion for summary judgment to dismiss all claims against our clients for a number of reasons, including the plaintiff’s failure to meet his burden of proving damages against our clients. As the plaintiff refused to move off his $1 million demand despite being advised by multiple neutral court-appointed mediators that the case had a value of less than 10 percent of the demand, the trial in the case was scheduled to commence.

The court granted summary judgment a week before jury selection. The court ruled that the plaintiff failed to meet his burden of proof that he sustained any damages as a result of the production of the records and dismissed all claims against the psychologist and her practice with prejudice.

Philadelphia Partners Paulyne A. Gardner-Smith and Ryan Michaleski handled the matter.

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