Surgeon’s Nondisclosure of Device’s Risks Relieves Defendants of Liability, N.Y. Federal Magistrate Judge Says

NEW YORK — A surgeon’s decision to not inform a patient of a hip fracture repair device’s risks relieves the manufacturer and distributor of liability because it severed the required causal connection between their allegedly inadequate warnings and the patient’s injury, a New York magistrate judge has found.

On Jan. 20, Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recommended that summary judgment be awarded to the defendants, explaining that the duty to warn runs to the prescribing physician because he acts as an informed intermediary between the manufacturer and the patient.