Greenville attorney Wally Fayssoux is one of the seven attorneys filing a $180 million class action suit on behalf of John Hollman of Beaufort County and others. The lawsuit has been filed against TLC LASIK Center accusing the LASIK laser eye clinics of performing surgeries on patients with pre-existing conditions that should have excluded them as laser eye surgery candidates.

Fayssoux said Hollman was one of many patients who underwent surgery between 1997 and 2003 even though pre-existing conditions made the procedure dangerous. Attorneys later discovered that Hollman was among approximately 1,600 patients who did not know that their records were kept in a confidential database. "TLC created two files. One that the patient would see and one that management would see," explained Fayssoux. "In one instance, they would tell the patient their ocular health is good while the other file clearly indicated that the patient wasn't a candidates for surgery."

The lawsuit claims the defendants would tell patients their eyes would improve with future procedures in hopes of pushing patients past the statute of limitations. The lawsuit also claims that TLC didn't uphold it's contract on Lifetime Commitment which was supposed to provide lifetime care for any post surgery problems.

Jim Hyland, vice president of parent company TLC Vision Corp. in St. Louis, MO, responded with, "It's our policy not to comment on pending litigation."