Lucio Villanueva v. HHS - Influenza, right shoulder injury related to vaccine administration (SIRVA) (2025)

On January 8, 2021, Lucio Villanueva filed a petition alleging that an influenza vaccination on September 24, 2020 caused a right shoulder SIRVA. He was 83 years old at vaccination.

After his unrelated death on November 5, 2022, his daughter and personal representative, Susan V. Mendoza, was substituted as petitioner.

The case turned on which arm received the flu vaccine. The vaccination record placed the flu shot in Mr.

Villanueva's left deltoid, but Mr. Villanueva later asserted that he had been injected twice and that the flu vaccine had actually been placed in his right arm.

The medical record complicated that story. In 2018 he had been treated for right shoulder pain, osteoarthritis of the acromioclavicular joint, and calcific tendinitis.

Two days after the 2020 vaccination, he presented with right shoulder swelling, and later imaging showed a subacromial spur and partial tears. During early physical therapy and orthopedic care, he and his daughter attributed his symptoms to an older fall, and an orthopedist later recorded that the pain had been present for a long time.

The first clear medical-record connection to the flu shot appeared in December 2020, when a neurologist noted dementia and a family history that Mr. Villanueva had been mistakenly injected twice.

Days later, an orthopedist aspirated cloudy joint fluid, and an infectious-disease specialist diagnosed Methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus septic arthritis. Ms.

Mendoza later produced a more complete urgent-care record saying the pain followed a flu shot two days earlier, but Chief Special Master Brian H. Corcoran found its probative value limited by the unclear change history and by the fact that the history still came from Mr.

Villanueva. On September 29, 2025, Chief Special Master Corcoran dismissed the case for insufficient evidence.

He found that the preponderant evidence showed the influenza vaccine was given only in the left arm, not the right shoulder alleged as injured, and that other record problems would likely have been fatal as well. No compensation was awarded.

Mr. Villanueva was represented by Leah VaSahnja Durant, and respondent by Alec Saxe.