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Suit: LASIK Centers Harmed Patients, Skirted Legal Claims

Chain allegedly kept database of potential plaintiffs

by Jon Hood
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 24, 2010
A class action lawsuit accuses TLC LASIK Centers of performing laser eye surgery on patients with certain pre-existing conditions, causing them serious and irreparable injury.

The suit, filed last week in a South Carolina federal court, says 30 TLC locations performed LASIK surgery on patients with conditions that should have disqualified them from the procedure.

"There's a certain subset of individuals who have a unique topography with their eye," attorney Wally Fayssoux told Greenville NBC affiliate WYFF. "If you do the surgery on those types of people, they're subjected to all types of conditions -- one of the worst being ectasia, which is corneal instability."

Lead plaintiff John Hollman, of Hilton Head, was one of those individuals. He developed ectasia -- a condition in which pressure from the inner eye pushes again a thin corneal wall -- following his 1999 LASIK procedure. Ectasia, which can lead to full loss of vision, is expensive to treat, and often requires corneal transplants. That's what Hollman is up against.

"I'll be in costly treatments for life," he said. His attorneys estimate that his lifetime medical expenses and other damages total at least $1 million.

How could so many experienced vision centers be so seemingly negligent?

Shockingly, Hollman's lawyers say negligence wasn't the issue. According to the suit, TLC kept a database of patients with conditions that could lead to injury down the road. The database contained the statutes of limitations for legal claims that could arise from the procedures, and the company intentionally scheduled follow-up appointments with those periods in mind. Thus, following surgery, patients weren't seen until after the window to file a suit had passed.

"All actions by the Defendants were designed to hide the patients' true condition and to manage the patients' expectations until that patient no longer posed a risk to the Defendants' assets," according to the suit.

Hollman's lawyers stumbled onto the database almost by accident, uncovering it during discovery for a state-court claim against the surgeon who performed the procedure. The database contained 180 additional patients in situations similar to Hollman's.

The suit is a blow to TLC, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December. The company's website declares that "people who rely on their vision trust TLC for their LASIK." Hollman's lawyers say they could seek up to $180 million in damages, estimating that the 181 potential plaintiffs would need $500,000 a piece for lifelong medical expenses.

In October, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was launching a three-year study to determine how many patients who undergo LASIK surgery suffer side effects as a result. The FDA also issued warnings to 17 surgical centers that failed to report post-surgery complications as required by law.

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