A former pediatric surgeon for St. Mary’s Medical Center has won an appeal in his nearly decade-long defamation lawsuit against CNN and employees involved in its reporting on pediatric deaths at a now-closed children’s cardiac surgery center at the hospital.
The Fourth District Court of Appeal on Sept. 10 overturned a 2023 summary judgment issued in CNN’s favor, finding that Dr. Michael Black had presented enough evidence to take the defamation lawsuit to trial.
Black was the leader of St. Mary’s Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery Program. He became the focus of a June 2015 CNN report saying the death rate for pediatric open-heart surgeries performed at the West Palm Beach hospital between 2011 and 2013 was more than three times the national average…