Cincinnati Jury's Verdict Against Spine Surgeon Durrani Stands, and Fraud Means No Credit for Other Settlements

Published January 25, 2022 · Ohio Appeals Courts

For years, former patients of spine surgeon Abubakar Atiq Durrani have been working their way through the courts of Southwest Ohio, many of them living with the results of surgeries they say they never needed. On January 12, 2022, the First District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati affirmed one of those verdicts in full. Along the way, it answered a question that matters well beyond the Durrani litigation: when a doctor is found to have committed an intentional wrong, does he get credit for money other defendants already paid the patient? The court said no.

The case is Adams v. Durrani, 2022-Ohio-60 (1st Dist.).

What happened to Patricia Adams

According to the court's opinion, Patricia Adams had suffered from neck and back pain for years and had already undergone a cervical fusion by another surgeon. She first saw Dr. Durrani in 2010, asking about nerve blocks to manage her pain. He operated on her lumbar spine later that year.

In 2013, Dr. Durrani told her she had instability at the very top of her cervical spine, at the C1-C2 level, and that she could end up on a ventilator or die if it were not corrected. He performed a C1-C2 fusion in April 2013.

At trial, three physicians testified for Mrs. Adams. They told the jury the imaging did not support the conditions Dr. Durrani described, that her cervical spine had not changed between 2010 and 2012, and that the 2013 surgery was not medically indicated. One testified that she lost 90 percent of her ability to turn her head from side to side. Two defense experts disagreed.

The verdict

After six days of testimony, the Hamilton County jury found that Dr. Durrani was negligent because he performed a C1-C2 fusion "that was not medically indicated." It also found in Mrs. Adams' favor on her claims for lack of informed consent, fraudulent misrepresentation, and battery (in plain terms, an unconsented touching, which a surgery becomes when the consent was obtained through misrepresentation).

The jury awarded $116,533 for past medical expenses and $975,000 in noneconomic damages, the damages for pain, suffering, and loss of the ordinary pleasures of life. Ohio caps noneconomic damages on medical claims under R.C. 2323.43, so the trial court reduced that portion to $500,000. That figure is the higher of the statute's two caps, and it applied because the jury found Mrs. Adams had suffered a "permanent and substantial physical deformity." With prejudgment interest, the judgment came to $745,217.14.

The appeals court upheld the jury's deformity finding, pointing to the permanent changes to her spine and the loss of motion in her neck. That detail is worth noticing. Whether an injury qualifies for the higher cap can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it is proven with medical testimony and careful preparation. We explain how Ohio's damages rules and caps work in our guide chapter on what your case is worth.

Why there was no credit for the hospital settlements

Before trial, Mrs. Adams settled with the hospitals involved, West Chester Hospital and UC Health. Dr. Durrani and his practice, the Center for Advanced Spine Technologies, argued that the verdict against them should be reduced by the amount of that settlement.

Ordinarily, that argument has force. Under R.C. 2307.28, when one of several wrongdoers settles, the injured person's claim against the others is generally reduced by the settlement amount. The idea is that a plaintiff should not collect twice for the same injury.

But Ohio law treats intentional wrongdoers differently. R.C. 2307.25(A) denies any right of contribution (the right of one wrongdoer to make another pay its share) to a defendant against whom an intentional tort claim has been alleged and established. Relying on that statute and on earlier Ohio Supreme Court precedent, the First District held that an intentional tortfeasor is not entitled to a setoff for other defendants' settlements either. A wrongdoer who acted intentionally should not profit from the fact that someone else paid the victim.

Dr. Durrani argued that most of the verdict rested on negligence, not on the intentional claims. The court disagreed. It concluded that all of the liability stemmed from the 2013 surgery and that the negligence, informed-consent, fraud, and battery claims were so intertwined that the injuries could not be separated. Because the battery could not be separated from the rest, the court held that Dr. Durrani "is not entitled to any setoff under R.C. 2307.28."

The repose argument

Dr. Durrani also argued that any claim based on the 2010 lumbar surgery was barred by Ohio's four-year medical statute of repose, R.C. 2305.113(C), which generally cuts off medical claims four years after the act or omission. We discussed that deadline in our post on Wilson v. Durrani.

The appeals court did not decide whether the repose statute would have barred a 2010-surgery claim. It held that the defendants had not properly pursued the defense before trial, and in any event the jury's findings showed that the liability came from the 2013 surgery, which was well within the time limits. The verdict stood.

What the decision teaches injured patients

Fraud and battery claims matter. Many medical cases are pleaded only as negligence. When the evidence shows that a doctor misrepresented a patient's condition to obtain consent, intentional-tort claims can change the outcome, including whether the defendant gets credit for other settlements.

Settling with one defendant does not have to shrink the verdict against another. How a case is structured, which claims are brought, and how settlements are documented all affect the final number. These decisions are made early, often long before trial.

Permanent injury must be proven, not assumed. The higher medical-claim cap applied here only because the jury heard evidence of a permanent and substantial deformity.

Time is not on your side. Medical claims carry a one-year statute of limitations and a four-year outer limit. Our guide explains why you should talk to a lawyer early, and medical cases are the clearest example.

This is not the first Durrani verdict to survive appeal; we wrote in 2015 about a $1 million verdict that was upheld. Adams continues that pattern and adds a valuable rule about settlements.

What this means for you

If a surgeon told you that you needed an operation, and you now have reason to believe you did not, you may have claims for negligence, lack of informed consent, fraud, and battery. Those claims carry short deadlines. Bring your records, your surgical consent forms, and any letters your doctor wrote to your other physicians. Our personal injury practice handles serious surgical-injury claims, and we will tell you honestly whether your case can still be brought.