Chiropractic Malpractice?

[Kotori]

My dad recently visited a chiropractor because he was having severe right shoulder pain after lifting many mattresses for his business. The chiropractor decided dad didn't need an xray of the injured area at all, but instead just went to town popping and moving dads arm around.  The "chiropractor" even made the comment that dads shoulder was about an inch and a half off from the other one, but still no xrays were taken.  A week or so later dad returned to the same chiropractor complaining of excruciating shoulder/arm pain that had gotten worse since he first went to the chiropractor.  The chiropractor decided yet again that no xrays of the area were needed and proceeded to, as my dad says, "beat on his shoulder for a half an hour".  After another 2 weeks of excruciating pain and just wishing his arm would fall off he decided(with my convincing) to go to his primary care doctor.  Once he arrived the FIRST thing his doctor did was order an xray of the hurting area. Upon examination of the film, dad had a very obvious BROKEN, and then RE-BROKEN collarbone.  His primary care physician was floored that the chiropractor even was in business due to his obvious negligence in refusing to look at dads shoulder with an xray before he re-broke dads collarbone 2 times while it was trying to heal from the initial break.  Just curious, do we have a valid case?  I work in the PCP office and have been in the medical field for years and I think he should sue him for malpractice. Res ipsa loquitor, "the thing speaks for itself". What do you think?

[Germain]

You have the right definition of res ipsa but the wrong usage.That principle is applied when a person is hurt and by no other possible cause than someone's negligence but you can't specifically identify the individual. Let's say two surgeons do a surgery. Later the patient is found to have a sponge still inside. We don't know which doctor did it but it could have only gotten and stayed there by negligence.  To your question, I was not clear if dad had a broken collar bone already when he first presented to the chiro or if the chiro broke it the first time.  Even though this chiro clearly screwed up and hurt dad, it is not necessarily a slam dunk. In a chiro malpractice case, the question is whether this chiro acted in a manner "below the standard of care".  Only another chiro can answer that question. They will have one that says the standard of care in this situation did not require that the defendant chiro take an xray. Therefore, although the chiro injured dad, twice, he may not have committed malpractice. Of course, if you did sue, it would be because your lawyers found an expert chiro to say that the standard of care DID require an xray.  That is where the battle lines would be drawn. But there is another problem to consider: I have taken chiro malpractice cases before but only when grievous injury was involved.....ie; my client had osteoporosis and the chiro fractured two vertebrae. Here a broken clavicle is not a huge injury and dad should make a full recovery. I don't mean to dismiss the pain and suffering he had nor the stupid handling of dad by the chiro but frankly, I doubt if I would take the case. The expert would cost money as well as rountine costs in any lawsuit. If the client offered to pay the costs, I might consider it, depending on whether there were other damages such as loss of earning,permanent impairment to some degree, etc. The law is such that cases like this oftentimes fall through the cracks because mp cases are so expensive and vigorously defended. Hope this helps.