Can i sue because of a false lab report? A report of a STD that was false?

I was told via the telephone, that my pap test showed positive for an STD by a PA. I demanded another test, and that and the other tests that the doctor ran showed negative all the way around. Do I have any legal grounds? I am married and it was devistating to both my husband and myself.Can i sue because of a false lab report? A report of a STD that was false?
you should just be happy you dont have a STD, why would you want to sue, the nurse may have just pulled a wrong file. Why would you want to ruin someones life and practice over a mistake?





You should have known it was wrong in the first place if you've been check before and are in a committed relationship.





Get over yourselfCan i sue because of a false lab report? A report of a STD that was false?
I don't know . . . any test can have false-positive results, its not necessarily provable incompetence that they gave you the wrong answer. I'd feel entitled to a written apology and explanation though from the lab.
NO you cannot. First off, paps do not test for STD's but I would bet that the result you received was.... ';an abnormal pap, which could be the result of HPV';. HPV is the leading cause of cervical, vaginal cancer in women, so when a pap comes back abnormal, and it is determined a positive for abnormal cells, the likely culprit is HPV. If you have another pap and it is normal, than more than likely you had a false-positive. VERY VERY common. Your doctor did what is the normal protocol, he retested you. If you tested positive again, he will more than likely conduct additional test, including one that will determine what strain of HPV you have.
no jack @ss, false positives happen more than doctors would like to admit.





maybe you should have gotten tested before you got married.
Only if you could prove the doctor/laboratory negligently gave you that information. Depending on what State you're in, that may be quite difficult.





Whenever you sue a doctor, the standard is that of a reasonable doctor; meaning, would a reasonable doctor have done the same if presented with the same circumstances as you did to your doctor.





Seeing that all lab tests have a possibility of giving false readings, and you unfortunately got one, most courts would probably find no negligence on the part of your doctor/his lab in administering the test if they followed usual protocol.





Now if the tests only comes back with a false indication when someone has been negligent, then you would have a case under the legal doctrine of res ipsa loquitor





Anyways, call a plaintiff's attorney (the guys on the phone book cover, commercials during daytime TV et cetera). He'll work on contingency to see if you have a claim, so that if you don't have one, you would not be any poorer for it.
Nothing is foolproof. It may have been devastating but now you know that you don't have it. You can probably sue, and maybe you'll even win, but what would you really gain from it? The doctor's malpractice insurance will rise and he'll probably go out of practice and hundreds of people may be without access to STD testing because doctors will be afraid to administer them for fear of getting sued. Then you'll have to contend with riskier sex because now you have no way whatsoever of knowing who has what because they don't even know. See how the little things we do affect everything else? Look at it this way: false negatives are also common. (Happened to me) You and your husband need to sit down and have a chat about your sexual past, because there are things that we wouldn't think to check for until they flare up.
No you don't have legal grounds to sue. Everyone gets a false positive at least once. If everyone who gets a false positive sued the doctor we would not have any doctors left.
a false report is forgivable, but they are not supposed to give out personal info like that via telephone
Only a lawyer can answer that for sure, and different states/nations have different rules regarding liability.





Having said that, I have never heard of a successful lawsuit of that nature. The labs all have fine print that states that no test is 100% accurate and false readings can and do happen occasionally.





If the PA read you somebody else's test result by mistake, you might have grounds for action, but I would only go to one of those lawyers who only collect if you win, since I honestly don't think you would win... Unfortunately, live in a time when the courts are not as friendly towards victims as they used to be... at least in my opinion...


Best,


Ed, RN
You would have legal grounds if you were physically harmed in some way; eg. taking a medication to which to you had a serious reaction. You would also have legal grounds if you could prove that those incorrect results were the result of negligence on the part of the lab tech or on the part of the person who took your samples.





Emotional distress does not qualify as legal grounds for suing...unless you could prove that the lab/clinic had a high occurrence of such false results.





What the average person does not know is that no diagnostic test is perfect. There is always a small chance that there will be inaccurate results such as false positives and false negatives. The tests are still used because they are usually (around 95-99%) accurate. And because no better alternative exists at that time. As technology improves, so too does the accuracy of the test.





Good for you for being proactive and asking to be retested!
Wow.. well a pap smear isn't supposed to test for STDs anyway. But simply having a bad test result is not grounds for legal action. You can't control every result... so much can affect it, what you ate, the freshness of the chemicals, your own body's chemical make up and so on. It doesn't mean that the lab tech did anything wrong necessarily, although human error does factor in. Unless they had put you on some regimen or drug that caused you harm, just be grateful they caught it. See this is why the medical system is so taxed and Drs. have to charge so much. Did you know the average Dr. is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for malpractice insurance? And that is just your regular Dr. out there doing his job. And the result of all of this unnecessary legal stuff is that states are cutting waaaaaay down on how much a person can sue for, leaving people who have been seriously injured or disabled by the occasional quack Dr. unable to get money enough to cover their day to day needs. You need to let it go and laugh it off. If you knew from the beginning you hadn't been messing around and your marriage is tight, then you knew that the results had to be wrong.
no sorry i dont think u can. if u could i would sue my orthodontist for not refering me to an ent when i was 13, which a stone in my saliva duct. now i have to have major surgury on it 6 years later. haha.





doctors arnt always right but they try their best, thats their job.


just be happy that your fine.
Woooooaaahhhh!! Im so sorry to hear this. I would think so because not only could they or did they impact your life and marriage in a negative way. They gave you false information.





Good Luck!
unfortunatly you can't. i work in the laboratory field.
first of all you do get results from a pap test if you have an std...depends on the doctor. another thing is that they should not have told you over the phone what the results are..they are suppose to call you into the office to discuss it with you...I sure do wish we could sue the heck out of these dr.s when they tell us something wrong...my sister was told she was hiv positive 5 times but in between the times of saying positive they said negative...just imagine what she was going through....always get second opinions for everything sweetie and i hope and pray you and your husband are alot better on this....


Good luck..