Nolan Reimold sues Johns Hopkins over 2012 neck surgery

Nolan Reimold had to undergo neck surgery after playing in only 16 games for the Orioles in the 2012 season. Now, three years later, he has initiated a lawsuit against the Johns Hopkins for negligent medical care.

In the suit, he argues that he was discharged before he should have been, putting him back on the field sooner and causing further damage to his back as a result of his bones not being fully fused. He was cleared by Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ziya Gokaslan.

Reimold did indeed need a second neck surgery after that 2012 surgery, which he had to get in 2013. A report at the time indicated that Reimold, when he went to resume baseball activities, was unable to fully get his left arm over, and further tests revealed that "the spine never fused properly and needed to be redone."

There's no immediate word of how much Reimold is seeking in the suit. If the first surgery did cost him the chance at a productive 2013 season for the Orioles, there is a decent chance that cost him some money. A healthy Reimold would have earned a nice raise in arbitration for the 2014 season, and quite possibly for the 2015 season as well.

Instead, after only playing in 40 games in 2013, in which he was never fully healthy, his 2014 salary only increased from $1,000,000 to $1,025,000. That's obviously quite a lot of money to you or I, but it is less than a healthy and productive baseball player going into his second year of arbitration should have earned.