Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in Ohio

It is unlikely that you have a claim for medical negligence but I can't state this with any certainty based upon the information you have provided. Your email is not clear as to the type of back surgery you had, whether it was a minimal surgery to the disk or a laminectomy. It is likely that you had disk disease involving both disk levels at the time of your first surgery and the L4-L5 was not as significant and the doctor's clinical judgment was to do a single level surgery. The fact that you had to have another surgery at a slighly higher level less then a year later is unfortunate and a littel unusual but it would be very difficult to prove that the doctor deviated from accepted standards of care in his surgery. The original MRI would have to be reviewed by an expert to determine if the l4-l5 disk should have been operated on at the same time but I doubt you will be able to prove sufficient injury and damage to warrant pursuing a claim as these type of cases are very expensive and unfortunately the doctor's clinical judgment, even if it is different then another surgeon's clincal decision does not mean he was negligent. Tough to win thesse cases and you have to have the right facts and the right damages to warrant venturing into this type of claim.