Appeals Court Grants Spine Surgeon New Trial

The Ohio First District Court of Appeals has reversed a $438,335.35 judgment against fugitive spine surgeon Abubakar Atiq Durrani, M.D. and the Center for Advanced Spine Technologies, Inc. (CAST).

The judgment was awarded to former patient Tammy Mann on her claims for negligence, failure to obtain informed consent, and fraudulent misrepresentation. Mann’s claims related to treatment she received from Dr. Durrani in 2012 for back pain.

According to the appeals court’s opinion, during the trial Mann played a recording of a collage of testimony from Dr. Durrani. The collage did not contain any questions regarding Mann’s surgery. The collage “contained questions on a multitude of topics, including Durrani’s role as the director of spine surgery and as an attending orthopedic surgeon, the education he received in Pakistan and his family ties to that country, prior lawsuits filed against Durrani, the revocation of his medical licenses and suspension of his privileges to practice medicine, whether various statements on his resume and on his application for a medical license were truthful, whether papers that he had submitted had to be withdrawn because the information he submitted was false, and his practices as a surgeon, including the frequency of recommending surgery to patients on their first visit.”

CAST and Dr. Durrani filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial, or remittitur which the trial court denied. CAST and Dr. Durrani appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in denying the motion. CAST and Dr. Durrani asserted that the motion should have been granted “based on the trial court’s admission of evidence that was allegedly substantially more prejudicial than probative, including the collage, evidence of Durrani’s medical license revocations, and other lawsuits that had been filed against Durrani.”

The appeals court sided with CAST and Dr. Durrani. In the appeals court’s opinion, it reversed the trial court’s judgment denying CAST and Dr. Durrani’s motion for a new trial.

This is not the only case against Dr. Durrani where the collage has been challenged. In its opinion, the appeals court referenced a similar challenge to the admission of the collage in a different case. In that case the court held that “in its entirety, the collage was ‘rife with prejudicial and inadmissible testimony’ and was improperly admitted.”

OTW has been covering litigation involving Dr. Durrani for nearly a decade. For OTW’s coverage, see “Fleeing Spine Surgeon Can’t Outrun the Law,” “Pakistani Hospital Suspends Spine Fugitive Durrani,” “Medtronic Disentangles From Durrani Infuse Lawsuits,” “Government Gets $4.1 Million From Hospital Used by Fugitive Spine Surgeon,” “Spine Fugitive Durrani Found in Pakistan,” and “Spine Surgeon Under Investigation Disappears.”