John R. Shepperd (Partner-Houston) authored “Defending a ‘Never Event” in Volume 37, Number 1, 2017 of the Journal of Healthcare Risk Management published by the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management. In the article, John deals with the operating room fire – an event the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services deems a preventable occurrence so egregious that it should never occur − with strategies on how to defend it. Information provided in this article was derived from a review of the relevant literature and from John’s personal experience defending lawsuits arising from Never Events, including a jury trial involving a surgeon who was sued for a patient’s injuries after a fire erupted in the operating room.