Earlier this month, a Vermont appellate court issued a written opinion in a wrongful death by medical malpractice case, involving allegations that a doctor was negligent in prescribing multiple doses of opioid medications to a patient who later died from ingesting a lethal combination of prescription and non-prescription medication. However, the court did not reach the issue of whether the doctor was negligent because the plaintiff failed to file the required certificate of merit in a timely fashion. As a result of the plaintiff’s failure to file the certificate of merit, the case was dismissed.
The Facts of the Case
The plaintiff was the surviving loved one of a woman who had died after she ingested a lethal combination of prescription and non-prescription medication. The prescription medication that the woman had taken was prescribed to her by the defendant physician. After learning about her loved one’s cause of death, the plaintiff filed this wrongful death lawsuit against the prescribing physician.
The case was filed three days before the statute of limitations was set to expire. However, when the plaintiff filed her case, she did not attach a certificate of merit, which is a document certified by another doctor or medical expert stating that, in the expert’s opinion, the plaintiff’s case has merit.