Gates v. Baum

BRIGHTMIRE, Presiding Judge.

The dispositive question here is whether a probated and closed estate can be reopened and an action brought against a specially appointed administrator ad litem of a deceased physician’s estate to recover damages for a newly discovered injury alleged to have been caused by the malpractice of the deceased physician during surgery he performed some eleven years earlier.

We hold it can.

I

On November 16, 1967, Virginia Gates submitted herself to extensive gynecological surgery — a removal of her uterus, tubes and ovaries — at the hands of Delbert G. Smith, M.D. Gates’…