A patient has sued medical device maker Teleflex after being injured during 2011 throat surgery.
A piece of one of the company’s surgical devices broke off and was left in the plaintiff’s neck during throat surgery, MassDevice.com reports.
Michael Kellerman, the patient, who is seeking $100,000 in damages, claims that the tip of Teleflex’s #12 French Pilling bougie, or dilator, broke away from the device’s metal handle during the surgery and that the piece remained in his neck. Kellerman says the defendants, Teleflex Medical (headquartered in North Carolina) and Teleflex Inc. (headquartered in Pennsylvania), made and sold a defective product, and the suit accuses them of negligence, the Madison-St. Clair (Wisconsin) Record newspaper reports.
The Record reports that Teleflex has asked to have the lawsuit moved to the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Illinois. The suit is currently being heard in the St. Clair County Circuit Court in Madison. The defendants argue that the case belongs not in state court but in federal court because the action involves citizens of different states.
