Mejia v. Gurvits CA4/2

── Mejia v. Gurvits CA4/2 ── Court: California Court of Appeal Date: June 05, 2026 Category: General Filed 6/5/26 Mejia v. Gurvits CA4/2 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO CHONA MEJIA et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, E083293 v. (Super.Ct.No. CVRI2105631) VADIM GURVITS D.O. et al., OPINION Defendants and Respondents. APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Erica A. Keen, Judge. Affirmed. Chona Mejia and James Mejia, in pro. per., for Plaintiffs and Appellants. Davis, Grass, Goldstein & Finlay and Gabriel M. Benrubi for Defendants and Respondents. 1  In this medical malpractice action, plaintiffs Chona and James Mejia appeal from the summary judgment entered in favor of defendants Vadim Gurvits, D.O.; Abigail Baker, N.P.; and Britanny Travis, M.A.1 We affirm. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND A. Plantiffs’ Lawsuit Plaintiffs represented themselves in the trial court, as they do on appeal. In the operative complaint, the Second Amended Complaint (SAC), Chona asserted three causes of action—(1) medical negligence against all three defendants; (2) medical negligence against Baker; and (3) negligent hiring and supervision against Dr. Gurvits— and James asserted a claim for loss of consortium.2 To support her claims, Chona alleged the following: She was a patient of Dr. Gurvits at his practices of Premier Family Care and Premier Urgent Care from 2018 through April 2021. She suffered from hyperthyroidism, but Dr. Gurvits misdiagnosed her with hypothyroidism and wrongly prescribed a non FDA-approved medication called Armour Thyroid to address the misdiagnosed hypothyroidism. Dr. Gurvits first prescribed the Armour Thyroid medication in June 2019. In August 2019, Dr. Gurvits instructed Chona to reduce her dosage by half. In February 2020, after she had been taking the medication for eight months, Dr. Gurvits advised her to stop taking it 1 Because they share a last name, we use the Mejias’ first names when referring to them individually. No disrespect is intended. 2 In response to defendants’ demurrer, the trial court dismissed Chona’s claim of fraud against all three defendants. 2 altogether. For the next 14 months, Chona received no thyroid treatment from Dr. Gurvits. Then, in May 2021, she saw an endocrinologist who diagnosed her with “grave[s’] disease/hyperthyroidism” and prescribed the FDA-approved drug Methimazole. Chona alleged that Dr. Gurvits was negligent for failing to detect her hyperthyroidism and prescribing Armour Thyroid, that Baker (Dr. Gurvits’s nurse practitioner) was negligent for refilling the prescription, and that Travis (Dr. Gurvits’s medical assistant) was negligent for telling her that “Armour Thyroid is for hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism and will go away without treatment.” Chona alleged that defendants were the “proximate cause” of her “harm, past damages, and future damages.” She alleged that “if Dr. Gurvits did not abandon my thyroid treatment, I would have obtained a better result, or as an alternative, if he had timely referred me to an endocrinologist, this lawsuit would not have been filed.” To support his claim, James alleged tha