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Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010 | 9:17 a.m.
Dr. Dipak Desai, the majority owner of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, leaves a hearing at Las Vegas City Hall on March 3, 2008.
Related Document (.pdf)
Sun Coverage
An insurance company is suing to cap payments to patients who say they were exposed to hepatitis C and other diseases at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.
American Casualty Company of Reading, Pennsylvania, filed suit last week in Las Vegas against 15 people who were patients -- or family members of patients -- potentially exposed to infectious diseases at the clinic, which closed in 2008 after investigators determined the re-use of anesthesia vials and syringes could have spread diseases among patients.
The Southern Nevada Health District later found that as many as 63,000 patients at the Endoscopy Center and the associated Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center could have been exposed to infection through reuse of vials containing the anesthetic propofol and syringes used to administer the drug.
Of that number, nearly 5,000 former patients have sued Dr. Dipak Desai and his clinics, with about 300 claiming they were infected with the hepatitis C virus and others seeking damages for having to live in fear that they, too, could have been infected.
In a December report on the outbreak, the health district said nine cases of hepatitis C were genetically linked to the centers, and 106 more were possibly linked.
Last week's lawsuit in federal court focuses on Mary Grear, who is identified in endoscopy litigation in Clark County District Court as a supervising pharmacist and, according to lawsuits, did business as Mary Grear LLC and Pharmacy Consulting Services Group.
Grear "established policies and procedures for and supervised the ordering, supplying, dispensing and/or administration of anesthesia at the clinic," some of the state court lawsuits say.
The patients say in the suits they were treated with "contaminated medical equipment and/or medications that were previously exposed to unknown persons at the clinic," including vials of propofol.
The insurance company says in the lawsuit that Grear has denied wrongdoing.
The company says the professional liability policies it provided Grear limited its liability to $1 million for each claim up to a cap of $6 million between Oct. 15, 2004, and Oct, 15, 2006. The policy had limits of $1 million per claim up to a cap of $3 million from Oct. 15, 2006, to Oct. 15, 2008, the lawsuit says.
The patients and their family members the insurance company is suing in federal court are themselves suing Grear and others in Clark County District Court and are seeking "well in excess" of $1 million from Grear's malpractice insurance, the company says.
But the Endoscopy Center claims "must be considered a single claim, subject to a single $1 million each claim indemnity limit of liability," the insurance company says in its lawsuit.
"All of Grear’s alleged acts and omissions with respect to the anesthesia constitute a single act or omission or are logically and/or causally connected by a common fact, circumstance, situation, transaction, event, advice, and/or decision," the lawsuit says.
Friday's lawsuit is only the latest in a series of legal actions filed in state court, federal court and the Endoscopy Center's bankruptcy case in which insurance companies are seeking to limit their liability to the endoscopy patients.
A related police investigation of Desai and other medical personnel associated with his clinics has been turned over to prosecutors for their review.
This is just what one might expect from American Casualty Company. Now comes the bought and paid for elected officials (usually Republicans) who will enjoin American Casualty Company and deny the damaged parties from this horrible act of negligence on everyones part their day in court and justice will be denied. Meanwhile the crooked elected officials will line their pockets with insurance companies lobbyists money, while they conveniently forget who they really represent.
America does not need to reign in the crooked insurance industry, everything is fine.Regulations who needs them? Let these honorable insurance executives regulate themselves. Just ask the Republicans.
Wow, the insurance company sued the individuals affected. That's pretty aggressive - now these people who were victims once have to spend even more money on lawyer fees to defend themselves against this...
But yeah, "tort reform" is the only thing the right can talk about, while its a whopping 3% of insurance expenditures. Its not an attempt to cap costs, its an attempt to reduce the number of (liberal) lawyers that can get rich on malpractice and afford to run for office.
The amount the Insurance company is able to pay out does have a limit no matter how you look at it.
The cap and limit should be on the amount the attorneys
get paid.
This guy and his crew should be currently locked up.
Scumbags...All of them starting with the lawyers who work for American Casualty..and then the Judge who even entertained this abusdity
What absurdity? Insurance companies have limits of coverage for a reason. Otherwise, they would not be able to price risk and the risk of something like this would cause rates to skyrocket. It's been industry standard forever and you have policy limits on your home insurance, health insurance, and car insurance. The insurance company will not be held liable for more than the limits, this is completely established case law. That's why the lawyers are trying to make a case for suing the drug manufacturer.
Here is a link to the parent company of American Casualty and their compensation report.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.Fil...
Make the limit per person the highest bonus the insurance co. paid to its officers. [retroactively of course, so they cannot fudge.]
Hey, give them the cap and let the patients take EVERYTHING from the doctor that caused this problem in the first place. I'm sure he has assets obtained through his "cost-saving measures." And then let the patients have 30 minutes alone with him in a dark alley to make up for anything he can't pay.
F--the insurance companies!!! They need to pay up.
Dr. "DEATH" (Dipak Desai) is more than greedy. He is evil. He is scum of the earth. This is a man that put pure profit first and peoples well being last. I bet if his daughter was getting a procedure she would have gotten clean everything. I think his sentence is him and anyone involved gets injected with HIV, Hep C and whatever else they spread around.
Hannity's main talking point is "torte reform" --the Heritage Foundation explained to him it didn't have to do with a thin layer cake -- so now the insurance company's are not satisfied with the cap that already exists. 60 minutes did the story on Vegas cancer patients being dumped. I wish someone would take the endoscopy center mass infection case national. Nancy Grace is about the only person that did any detailed coverage.
I wonder how many dittoheads and Beckbrains are infected? You know they are the first to sue, and the first to go get government benefits as well.
I understand that the lawyers are looking for money anywhere they can find it and I think that Grer is at fault (the rate of usage should have raised a red flag for anyone experienced in what she does or did) but the cap is needed. That way the insurance company can pay out the max policy limit to the patients as quickly as possible before the Grer's lawyers eat it all up with their fees for defending her. This is a wrongful act done by Desai and possibly by Grer whether she was aware of it or not. This is not an act done by the insurance companies. Their contract was to cover her for 1,000,000/3,000,000 limits of which they will honor their side of the contract. Whatever bonuses they paid to their execs has nothing to do with anything so long as they're a solvent company. The insurance company did not infect the patients and if Desai and Grer had a clean loss history before they purchased their current coverage then the carrier had no reason to believe they were going to do something so horrible as what they did. People are letting their feelings about health care insurance companies and the bailed out banks cloud their judgement about a solvent CASUALTY insurer. It's an inflammatory subject and it makes me angry as well but please do a little more research. The carrier is not at fault here. If anyone should be sued into oblivion it's the individuals who committed the acts not their carriers. And...no I am not an agent of American Casualty and have NOTHING to do (thank God!) with any of the insureds in this debacle.