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Ratcliff v. Graether5/13/2005
Plaintiff appeals from a district court ruling sustaining defendants' motion for summary judgment. AFFIRMED.
In this medical malpractice action, the plaintiff, Bruce L. Ratcliff, appeals from a district court ruling sustaining a motion for summary judgment filed by the defendants, John M. Graether, M.D. and Wolfe Clinic, P.C. At issue is whether the continuous treatment doctrine tolled the statute of limitations. Because we conclude the doctrine did not toll the statute, we affirm.
I. Background Facts
Wolfe Clinic, P.C. sponsored an orientation seminar, which Ratcliff attended, that provided information on elective surgery designed to reduce or eliminate the need to wear eyeglasses or contact lenses. At that seminar, Norman F. Woodlief, M.D. of the clinic talked about various surgical techniques that were available, which involved removing tissue from the cornea.
On April 30, 1996, Ratcliff pursued this treatment at which time Graether of the Wolfe Clinic performed surgery on Ratcliff's right eye. That eye had a negative twelve diopters myopia reading prior to surgery.
On April 9, 1997, Graether performed an "enhancement" surgery on the eye. Enhancement surgeries remove additional tissue and further flatten the cornea. Such surgeries are often performed because surgeons choose to err on the side of undercorrection with the first surgery.
Ratcliff described how the enhancement surgery improved his vision:
rom the moment it was uncovered the day following the surgery, the vision was clear and much improved over what I'd had prior to any surgery, and I felt that if I could get vision in my left eye as good as what I was now seeing in the right eye that this would be a benefit.
On April 30 Graether performed LASIK surgery on Ratcliff's left eye, which had a negative ten diopters myopia reading. After this surgery, Ratcliff said his vision was "very clouded" and "terrible" compared to what had happened just less than a month before on the right eye.
On May 13 Graether told Ratcliff he might have overcorrected the left eye. A week later, Graether told Ratcliff that a cataract was forming on that eye, which was not present prior to the surgery. The cataract formation, according to Graether, was just a coincidence.
At some point in 1997, Graether stopped seeing patients in the Wolfe Clinic's Cedar Falls office, where Graether had seen Ratcliff. Graether chose to see patients only in the clinic's Marshalltown office. From that time forward, Todd W. Gothard, M.D. treated Graether's Cedar Falls patients and kept Graether informed of their progress.
On December 23 Ratcliff saw Richard C. Mauer, M.D., an ophthalmologist and ophthalmic surgeon, because of the cataract formation. In his deposition, Ratcliff explained more fully why he saw Mauer and what Mauer told him:
I was still having a great deal of problem with my eye. I, frankly, had doubted their explanation of the cataract as being the cause, and so in the interim I had gone to Dr. Mauer for a second opinion as to the effect of the cataract. And I was told by Dr. Mauer that, yes, there was a very small, tiny cataract forming, but that it would not be perceptible to me at that stage, and he didn't believe that the cataract would account for my visual problems.
Q: What did you tell Dr. Mauer?
A: Well, to the best of my recollection, the general theme of it was that I had serious visual problems with the left eye and that both Dr. Graether and Dr. Gothard told me it was due to a cataract, and I didn't think the timing made much sense, and I wanted his opinion.
Q: W
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