John L.A. Lyddane

March 14, 2022 | New York Law Journal

The realities of discovery in complex cases create situations in which access to vital information is foreclosed simply because there is insufficient data to allow for an evidence-based decision.

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

January 14, 2022 | New York Law Journal

The Second Department recently decided 'Siegel v. Snyder', which broadly expands discovery of quality assurance documents and statements despite the clear statutory prohibitions. Before this error is corrected by the legislature or the Court of Appeals, it should be expected that there will be considerable activity in this area of discovery for pending malpractice cases.

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

November 15, 2021 | New York Law Journal

The single point of agreement seems to be that the policy considerations articulated by the court, before and after codification in CPLR §214-a, have remained the same since the court first spoke to the issue in 1962.

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

September 24, 2021 | New York Law Journal

In his Medical Malpractice column, John Lyddane provides a discussion for defense counsel in malpractice cases where the focus is reliance on prescription medication package inserts. He writes: "Where that reliance is misplaced, defense counsel needs to be ready to respond."

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

July 19, 2021 | New York Law Journal

In his Medical Malpractice column, John L.A. Lyddane addresses how the legal duty of the emergency room physician remains a question of law across a spectrum of treatment scenarios. Those providers continue to require careful attention from their counsel to limit their involvement and exposure to the circumstances in which the law has determined that they owe a duty to the patient.

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

May 21, 2021 | New York Law Journal

In his Medical Malpractice column, John L.A. Lyddane discusses the cause-in-fact defense, which is describes as underemployed in medical malpractice cases tried in New York courts. The distinction between cause-in-fact, also referred to as "actual cause", and proximate cause is frequently important enough to present this defense opportunity for the malpractice defendant where situationally appropriate.

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

March 15, 2021 | New York Law Journal

In his Medical Malpractice column, John L.A. Lyddane writes that the error in judgment defense "is as valuable as it ever was in protecting the physician defendant from the other 'experts' in the profession who are retained for second guessing."

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

January 15, 2021 | New York Law Journal

In a medical malpractice case, expert testimony is required to establish the standard of care, a departure from that standard, and that the departure was a proximate cause of the damages claimed. Without full exploration of causation issues, the defense is ill prepared for trial. In this edition of his Medical Malpractice column, John L.A. Lyddane takes a look at the case law governing expert analysis of causation defenses.

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

December 03, 2020 | New York Law Journal

During discovery, it may be determined that claims for negligent hiring, retention, supervision, and credentialing extend liability to entities which were not initially identified as parties. In his Medical Malpractice column, John Lyddane shows how understanding the parameters of such liability under New York law could be of importance to all counsel representing litigants in malpractice cases.

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read

October 14, 2020 | New York Law Journal

The neatly divided roles of fact witness, expert witness and finder of fact are understandable in theory, but have not always been easy to apply to the evidence in a given case, as explored by John L.A. Lyddane in his column on Medical Malpractice Defense.

By John L.A. Lyddane

8 minute read