- Court
- Court of Appeals of Georgia
- Year
- 2025
- Case
- Moton v. Emory Healthcare, Inc.
- Citation
- 377 Ga. App. 127
- Decided
- October 1, 2025
Conflicting testimony about which IV site was used to administer Dilantin created a credibility issue for the jury. Expert testimony using differential diagnosis and circumstantial evidence was also sufficient to create a jury question on causation.
Summary
The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed summary judgment for Emory Healthcare in Moton v. Emory Healthcare, Inc. The plaintiff alleged that nurses administered Dilantin through a small IV in her hand rather than a larger neck line, leading to tissue injury and amputation.
The appellate court held that conflicting testimony about which IV was used, combined with competent expert testimony based on circumstantial evidence and differential diagnosis, created jury questions.
Issues Decided
Witness credibility and the IV site used
Decision
The court held that a genuine issue of material fact existed on which IV site was used to administer Dilantin.
Facts
Georgia Moton had several IV lines, including a 22-gauge line in her hand and a 20-gauge line in her neck. The records did not identify which IV was used for two Dilantin doses. Years later, Nurse Betty Stokes testified that she had no doubt she used the left jugular line. But Emory’s corporate representative had previously testified that, during the hospital’s investigation, neither involved nurse had any independent recollection of which IV site was used.
Reasoning
The vein used for the medication was central to the case. The corporate-representative testimony about lack of memory contradicted the nurse’s later certainty, creating a credibility issue that a jury had to resolve.
Expert causation testimony
Decision
The court held that Moton’s expert testimony was sufficient to create a jury question on causation.
Facts
Moton’s hand developed mottled swelling and bullae shortly after the Dilantin doses and later required amputation. Her experts opined that the injury was more likely than not caused by Dilantin extravasation in the hand IV. A plastic-surgery expert used differential diagnosis to rule out other causes as less likely.
Reasoning
The court rejected the trial court’s view that the experts were relying on res ipsa loquitur. Plaintiffs may prove negligence and causation through circumstantial evidence. The experts connected Dilantin’s tissue-injury characteristics with the observed injury pattern and stated their opinions in terms of reasonable medical probability.
Commentary
The opinion is useful on both summary judgment and causation. A later witness’s certain recollection did not erase earlier corporate testimony that no nurse remembered the critical fact. That conflict belonged to the jury.
The causation holding matters where the medical record is silent on the exact mechanism of injury. The Court of Appeals accepted differential diagnosis and circumstantial proof when the expert linked the drug’s known properties to the patient’s injury pattern and ruled out less likely causes.
