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DENIS DALLAIRE, ADMINSTRATOR (ESTATE OF SANDRA DALLAIRE) v. VEN C. HSU (AC 32435)
DiPentima, C. J., and Gruendel and Borden, Js. Argued May 16--officially released August 9, 2011

(Appeal from Superior Court, judicial district of New Britain, Tanzer, J.) George W. Kramer, for the appellant (plaintiff). Eliot B. Gersten, with whom, on the brief, was John H. Van Lenten, for the appellee (defendant).

Opinion

DiPENTIMA, C. J. The plaintiff, Denis Dallaire, as administrator of the estate of the decedent, Sandra Dallaire, brought this medical malpractice action, alleging that the defendant, Ven C. Hsu, negligently prescribed lethal amounts of opiate medications, resulting in her death.1 The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the defendant. On appeal, the plaintiff argues that the court improperly (1) found that the decedent had a significant tolerance to morphine and methadone, and that the standard of care did not require the defendant to consult with the plaintiff's prior health care providers or to obtain her pharmacy records to determine her level of tolerance, (2) found that the plaintiff failed to prove causation and (3) disregarded the opinion of the plaintiff's expert on causation.2 We affirm the judgment of the trial court. The court found the following facts. The decedent suffered from Madelung's disease, a congenital skeletal deformity resulting in years of chronic pain, multiple fractures and surgeries. For at least six years prior to seeing the defendant, the decedent was prescribed a variety of narcotic medications to alleviate her chronic pain. Between 2003 and June 27, 2005, the decedent was treated by Karen Warner, a physician at the Comprehensive Pain & Headache Treatment Centers, LLC (treatment center). Subsequent to the decedent's discharge from the treatment center, the decedent received prescriptions for opiate medications from a number of unaffiliated physicians. Then, on July 20, 2005, the decedent saw David S. Kloth, a physician at Connecticut Pain Care, P.C. According to Kloth's records, the decedent informed him that the final prescriptions issued to her on discharge from the treatment center included ``OxyContin 80 mg qid, [m]ethadone 80 mg qid, Duragesic 200 mcg q 72 hrs, Valium 10 mg qid and Soma qid.''3 Kloth reduced the decedent's prescriptions solely to methadone 10 mg q.i.d. On October 13, 2005, Kloth issued the decedent a final prescription for methadone, 10 mg q.i.d. for 28 days. On October 27, 2005, the decedent saw the defendant, who specializes in pain management. The decedent provided the defendant with the pharmacy records from Warner but not those of Kloth, ``even though she had, that very day, obtained her complete prescription records, including Kloth's, from Walgreens Pharmacy.'' The defendant believed that the decedent was out of medication and that if she did not receive any, she might engage in drug seeking behaviors. The defendant considered this to be an ``emergency and urgent.''4 The defendant prescribed ``[m]ethadone, 40 mg 4 pills/day, MS Contin 60 mg 2/day, Xanax 1 mg 3/day.''5 At approximately 1 a.m., on October 28, 2005, the plaintiff found the decedent nonresponsive, and emergency responders were unable to revive her. The medical examiner

listed the cause of the decedent's death as opiate toxicity. Thereafter, the plaintiff commenced this action. The defendant filed a special defense, alleging that the decedent was contributorily negligent.6 Following a trial to the court, it issued a memorandum of decision in favor of the defendant. This appeal followed. We begin by setting forth the legal principles that guide our analysis. The trial court's findings of fact are binding on this court ``unless they are clearly erroneous in light of the evidence and the pleadings in the record as a whole.'' (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Babcock v. Bridgeport Hospital, 251 Conn. 790, 828, 742 A.2d 322 (1999). ``A finding of fact is clearly erroneous when there is no evidence in the record to support it . . . or when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.'' (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Schiavone v. Bank of America, N.A., 102 Conn. App. 301, 304, 925 A.2d 438 (2007). Conflicting expert testimony ``does not necessarily equate to insufficient evidence.'' Carusillo v. Associated Women's Health Specialists, P.C., 79 Conn. App. 649, 656, 831 A.2d 255 (2003). Where such testimony does conflict, ``the trial judge is the sole arbiter of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given specific testimony. . . . The credibility and the weight of expert testimony is judged by the same standard, and the trial court is privileged to adopt whatever testimony [it] reasonably believes to be credible. . . . On appeal, we do not retry the facts or pass on the credibility of witnesses.'' (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Bay Hill Construction, Inc. v. Waterbury, 75 Conn. App. 832, 838, 818 A.2d 83 (2003). Finally, to recover in a medical malpractice action, the plaintiff must prove ``(1) the requisite standard of care for treatment, (2) a deviation from that standard of care, and (3) a causal connection between the deviation and the claimed injury.'' (Internal quotation marks omitted). Gold v. Greenwich Hospital Assn., 262 Conn. 248, 254

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