Jan. 18--A doctor says the Ohio Supreme Court caved to political considerations when it refused to hear an appeal of a malpractice case against him, noting that the lawyer on the other side had supported the campaign of then-Chief Justice Eric Brown.

In a 5-2 decision last month, the Supreme Court tossed out an appeal filed by Dr. John Cox, a neuro-radiologist in Allen County who was sued for allegedly bungling a stroke diagnosis in 2005.

Cox had misread an MRI performed on Jeffrey Geesaman, then 48, who had been admitted to the emergency room of St. Rita's Medical Center in Lima with dizziness, slurred speech, vomiting and other symptoms, according to court testimony. Doctors concluded that Geesaman had not suffered a stroke when, in fact, he had. Geesaman experienced a more severe stroke about a week later.

Geesaman and his wife sued, alleging that the faulty diagnosis resulted in Jeffrey Geesaman not getting the treatment he needed to prevent the more serious stroke.

Cox and other doctors at St. Rita's acknowledged the error but said Geesaman likely would have suffered the more serious stroke anyway.

The Geesamans were represented by Dennis P. Mulvihill, a Cleveland lawyer who now heads the Ohio Association for Justice, an advocacy group of trial lawyers.

The Allen County Common Pleas Court sided with Cox and the other doctors and dismissed the lawsuit. The 3rd District Court of Appeals reinstated the case against Cox but not the other doctors. Cox appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed in February that it would hear his case. About three months later, Brown was appointed chief justice to replace the late Thomas J. Moyer.

Brown, a Democrat, then launched a campaign to win election to keep the chief justice post against opponent Maureen O'Connor, then a Republican justice. Republican Justices Judith Ann Lanzinger and Paul E. Pfeifer were preparing to run for new terms.

Mulvihill's group ultimately spent about $400,000 in what became a unsuccessful attempt to elect Brown and defeat O'Connor and Lanzinger. (Pfeifer was unopposed.)

O'Connor and Lanzinger stepped down from the Geesaman case. But Brown stayed on, saying in a statement that he had reviewed the law and that "nothing in the rule requires that I disqualify myself from hearing this case."

The court began to consider the case in October, the month before the election, but tossed it out in December, saying it never should have accepted the appeal. Brown was part of the five-vote majority in that decision, which the court did not explain. So were the two judges he picked to temporarily replace O'Connor and Lanzinger.

"I thought we had a system of justice here," Cox said this week. "Now we don't have a verdict and we have to go to trial. It looks like political maneuvering."

Brown, now a Franklin County Municipal Court judge, declined to comment beyond the statement the court released in October. Supreme Court spokesman Chris Davey said Cox cannot petition the court to reconsider its refusal to take up the case.

jnash@dispatch.com

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