St. Paul pain specialist not liable for patient’s alleged opioid addiction, jury finds
A seven-member Ramsey County jury deliberated for roughly six hours before determining that Dr. Samuel K. Yue and the Minnesota Pain Center were not liable for a Ham Lake man’s alleged opioid addiction.
The verdict was delivered Wednesday evening in a medical malpractice trial that called into question the degree to which physicians can be held accountable for unintended consequences after medicating or overmedicating their patients with opioids.
Yue, the chief executive officer of the St. Paul-based pain center, had maintained through his attorneys that he operated within industry standards of care when he placed longstanding patient Michael Faulhaber on morphine and oral opioids in 2003.
Faulhaber remained Yue’s patient until 2016 and filed suit, along with his wife Yvonne, in 2020 after suffering what he described as debilitating symptoms. Each plaintiff sought upwards of $50,000 in damages.
At trial, medical expert witnesses for the defense said based on their review of his medical records, Faulhaber suffered from significant and longstanding psychological issues, but they were not necessarily evidence of opioid addiction.
A call to Faulhaber’s defense team was not returned on Thursday.
