James v. Wormuth
Court of Appeals of New York
997 N.E.2d 133 (N.Y. 2013)
During a lung biopsy, Dr. Wormuth (defendant) lost a guide wire inside James (plaintiff), searched for it 20 minutes without success, and judged it was in James's best interest to end the procedure with the wire still inside rather than continue searching; the wire was removed weeks later. James sued for malpractice on the theory that Wormuth was negligent for intentionally leaving the wire inside her. The trial court granted Wormuth a directed verdict, the appellate court affirmed, and James appealed.
Whether, in a medical malpractice case based on a foreign object left inside a patient, res ipsa loquitur applies where the object was intentionally left in the patient because doing so was judged to be in the patient's best interest.