A federal judge in Pennsylvania has denied a motion to dismiss a medical malpractice action attempting to assign liability to the federal government over physicians' alleged negligence.

In an Oct. 23 opinion, U.S. District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo of the Middle District of Pennsylvania denied the government's motion to dismiss a Federal Tort Claims Act medical malpractice action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, while partially granting its motions for judgment on the pleadings in part and for summary judgment, after James Leroy Mummert Jr. claimed his medical providers at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center failed to properly evaluate and timely treat a spinal cord abscess, causing him to suffer permanent paralysis.