The ASL Foggia 2 was sued for alleged medical responsibility of the emergency room, accused of not having administered the necessary anticoagulant and antiplatelet therapy. After two official technical consultations (CTU), the Court, with sentence dated 8 January 2016, rejected the plaintiff’s request.
The Court of Appeal of Bari, with sentence dated 22 March 2021, declared the ASL FG-Health Company of the Province of Foggia responsible for the patient’s death, condemning it to compensate each of the appellants with 174,258.24 euros, in addition to 175,268, 24 euros “in favor of the entire family unit”, and added the accessories and litigation costs of both levels of judgment, as well as the costs of the two expert witnesses carried out in the first degree. Furthermore, it accepted the request for indemnity, condemning the insurance company to compensate the appellant within the limit of 129,114.22 euros.
Appeal against the second instance decision
The appeal against the second instance decision contested the evidence obtained through the second expert witness and the causal link between the omissions of the emergency room and the patient’s death, arguing the violation of the principles regarding the reconstruction of the causal link and the burden of proof. The Court’s ruling was recalled as correct and the CTU’s considerations were described as “contradictory and imprecise”, stating that the appeal judge should have critically examined “some crucial passages” which would have led to recognizing “the absolute uncertainty of the causal link ”. It was argued that the burden of proving the causal link had not been met because the death was not an “effective consequence of the violation of the leges artis”. Furthermore, the Judge of Appeal was accused of not having correctly respected the “more probable than not” rule in relation to the patient’s death and the failure to administer the therapy.
In summary, the appellants argued that the Court of Appeal violated the “more likely than not” rule by failing to choose the most logically confirmatory evidence.
The Court of Cassation rejected the ASL’s complaintsjudging them to be aimed at providing an alternative reconstruction of the facts compared to that of the Judge of Appeal (Civil Cassation, section III, 05/06/2024, n.15779).
The Court of Cassation also rejected the relatives’ cross-appeal of the victim, leading to the compensation of costs for mutual defeat, including the counter-appellant Generali Assicurazioni, which had supported the first two reasons of the main appeal.
This is reported by DifesaCivile.it
