Laser eye patients sue B.C. clinic, U.S. affiliate

SURREY, B.C. - Three American patients are accusing a high-volume British Columbia laser eye clinic and its U.S. affiliate of causing severe injury to their vision and of using unfair and deceptive business practices on them and hundreds of others.

Marie Harris and her sisters Janet Janke, 34, and Sherry Stauffer, 37, have filed a medical-malpractice lawsuit in King County Superior Court in Seattle against the Lexington Eye Institute in Surrey and against a U.S.-based firm, Focus Eye Care.

The case alleges the clinic violated Washington's Consumer Protection Act.

A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs could open the door to a class-action lawsuit against the clinics, which treat about 1,000 patients a month.

"We're bringing it to the court's attention that they violated Washington law," said the sisters' attorney, Gretchen Freeman Cappio, of the Seattle law firm Keller Rohrback.

Lexington medical director Peter Stockdill said Tuesday he had no comment on the case.

The sisters say that what began as a cross-border excursion last March to get the popular surgery, which promises myopic patients freedom from glasses or contact lenses, quickly became a nightmare.

The lawsuit claims all three now suffer from "hazy, and/or foggy vision; starbursts; halos; glare; ghosting; headache and severely impaired night vision."

"It's like I'm looking through an aquarium," Harris said.

Stauffer said she now has trouble identifying her own children at 30 feet.

More than 90 percent of Lexington's patients are Americans attracted to the Canadian clinics by radio and newspaper ads offering substantially lower prices.

The lawsuit isn't the first against Focus Eye Care, which handles pre-operative and post-operative care for Lexington.

On Sept. 13, another Washington patient sued the clinic, alleging its staff made a series of blunders that ultimately cost him his cornea and his ability to see clearly.

In his King County Superior Court lawsuit, Kevin Baerg said he saw an optometrist at Focus Eye Care after his surgery at Lexington in July 1999.

There, he was prescribed steroid drops to treat an infection in his left eye.

After several weeks of increasing pain, he was finally referred to an ophthalmologist, where he learned the infection had eaten a hole in his cornea and was treatable only by transplant, the lawsuit says.

Contacted Monday, Focus Eye Care director Dana Dixon said he could not discuss the case.

The lawsuit alleges that both Harris' and Janke's pupils were mismeasured at Focus, which meant that neither woman was aware of being at greater risk for complications.

Laser eye surgery is known to carry a greater risk for patients with large pupils.

Their lawsuit also claims that hundreds of patients have been the objects of unfair and deceptive business practices.

Lexington patients pay $1,275 upfront, and the clinic grosses more than $12 million a year.

Recruitment, payment and pre-op and post-op care take place south of the border, but patients are required to sign a consent form that prevents them from suing in the United States.

The suit alleges the consent form allows the clinic to hide behind Canadian law, which typically metes out substantially smaller settlements in malpractice suits.

Cathy Welch, spokeswoman for Lexington, said in September that fewer than 1 percent of the 1,000 patients treated at Lexington each month suffer complications.

Laser-eye surgery, performed on more than 1 million people worldwide last year, has recently come under criticism by some researchers, who say it can reduce the ability to see at night in up to 60 percent of patients.