6/26/08

New Jersey doctors of chiropractic may soon regain permission to manipulate more than their patients’ backs. Recently, the state Supreme Court ruled that a negligence claim over the chiropractic adjustment of an extremity should be retried.

In 1999, Carol Bedford visited Anthony Riello, DC, because her regular chiropractor was on vacation. Bedford complained of pain in her right hip and left knee, after which Riello adjusted her back and then her knee by draping the left leg over his forearm and “pushing down, like a lever.”

Bedford noted that she “heard a pop and (felt a) burning immediately.” Her knee throbbed, burned and hurt when she got off the exam table. She later went on to have arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus in her knee, as well as an additional surgery to remove a cyst that was behind the knee.

After hearing the case, a jury sided with the doctors, but the decision was reversed by the Appellate Division, who stated that chiropractors should deal only with the spinal column, and not the extremities. The decision dealt a devastating blow to New Jersey’s doctors of chiropractic.

In light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, a new trial that utilizes expert testimony should decide if manipulation of the knee “bore a nexus” to the spinal column.

Justice Virginia Long wrote, "The jury should be instructed that, if it concludes that no condition of the adjusted structure was properly related to a spinal condition, the adjustment would fall outside the scope of chiropractic practice in New Jersey, as defined in the statutes and regulations, and that such violation may be considered evidence that defendants were negligent.”

[Source: Legal Newsline.com, June 18, 2008]