Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

This interlocutory appeal arose from a circuit court’s denial of a motion to transfer venue. Under Mississippi law, venue is determined at the time the lawsuit originally is filed. The resolution of this appeal hinged on the application of this principle to an issue of first impression for the Mississippi Supreme Court: does an amended complaint, which names a new party to the suit, relate back to the time of filing of the original complaint for the purposes of determining venue? The Court found it did not. The suit here was filed in Hinds County, naming only Forrest County defendants, and the amended complaint did not relate back to the time of filing for the purposes of determining venue. The circuit court abused its discretion in denying the motion to transfer venue. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the circuit court and remanded the case to be transferred to the Circuit Court Forrest County. View "Forrest General Hospital v. Upton" on Justia Law

The Board of Directors (the Board) of Bear Valley Community Hospital (Bear Valley) refused to promote Dr. Robert O. Powell from provisional to active staff membership and reappointment to Bear Valley's medical staff. Dr. Powell appealed the superior court judgment denying his petition for writ of mandate to void the Board's decision and for reinstatement of his medical staff privileges. Dr. Powell practiced medicine in both Texas and California as a general surgeon. In 2000, the medical executive committee of Brownwood Regional Medical Center (Brownwood), in Texas, found that Dr. Powell failed to advise a young boy's parents that he severed the boy's vas deferens during a hernia procedure or of the ensuing implications. Further, the committee found that Dr. Powell falsely represented to Brownwood's medical staff, on at least two occasions, that he fully disclosed the circumstances to the parents, behavior which the committee considered to be dishonest, obstructive, and which prevented appropriate follow-up care. Based on the committee's findings, Brownwood terminated Dr. Powell's staff membership and clinical privileges. In subsequent years, Dr. Powell obtained staff privileges at other medical facilities. In October 2011, Dr. Powell applied for appointment to the medical staff at Bear Valley. On his initial application form, Dr. Powell was given an opportunity to disclose whether his clinical privileges had ever been revoked by any medical facility. In administrative hearings generated by the Bear Valley Board’s decision, there was a revelation that Dr. Powell had not been completely forthcoming about the Brownwood termination, and alleged the doctor mislead the judicial review committee (“JRC”) about the circumstances leading to that termination. Under Bear Valley's bylaws, Dr. Powell had the right to an administrative appeal of the JRC's decision; he chose, however, to bypass an administrative appeal and directly petition the superior court for a writ of mandamus. In superior court, Dr. Powell filed a petition for writ of mandate under Code of Civil Procedure sections 1094.5 and 1094.6, seeking to void the JRC's/Board's decision and to have his medical privileges reinstated. The trial court denied the petition, and this appeal followed. On appeal of the superior court’s denial, Dr. Powell argued he was entitled to a hearing before the lapse of his provisional staff privileges: that the Board surreptitiously terminated his staff privileges, presumably for a medical disciplinary cause, by allowing his privileges to lapse and failing to act. The Court of Appeal determined the Bear Valley Board had little to no insight into the true circumstances of Dr. Powell’s termination at Brownwood or the extent of his misrepresentations, thus the Board properly exercised independent judgment based on the information presented. In summary, the Court of Appeal concluded Bear Valley provided Dr. Powell a fair procedure in denying his request for active staff privileges and reappointment to the medical staff. View "Powell v. Bear Valley Community Hospital" on Justia Law

Teresa Vermilyea and her daughter, Julie Vermilyea Kasby, filed suit against Singing River Health System, Jennifer Thomas-Taylor, M.D.; Alva Britt, R.N.; Benjamin Hudson, M.D.; and Emergency Room Group, Ltd., pursuant to the Mississippi Tort Claims Act for the wrongful death of Randy Vermilyea, the husband of Teresa Vermilyea and father of Julie Vermilyea Kasby (collectively, “Vermilyea”). Vermilyea alleged that Randy had been admitted to the Singing River Hospital following a suicide attempt and that the defendants had breached the standard of care by failing to assess his mental condition properly and prematurely discharging him, proximately causing his suicide minutes after his discharge. Julie Vermilyea Kasby, who had witnessed her father’s suicide, asserted a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The trial court denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The Mississippi Supreme Court granted appellants' interlocutory appeal. Finding that Vermilyea did state viable legal claims based upon Randy Vermilyea’s death, the Supreme Court affirmed and remanded the case to the Circuit Court for further proceedings. View "Singing River Health System v. Vermilyea" on Justia Law

Amy Langley Hamilton appealed a judgment entered in favor of Warren Scott, M.D., and the Isbell Medical Group, P.C. ("IMG"), following a jury trial on Hamilton's claim alleging the wrongful death of her stillborn son Tristian. In the first appeal, Hamilton v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 728 (Ala. 2012) ("Hamilton I"), the Alabama Supreme Court reversed in part a summary judgment entered against Hamilton because it concluded that Hamilton was entitled to pursue a wrongful-death claim regarding her unborn son even though the child was not viable at the time of his death. It was undisputed that the trial court's charges to the jury did not include the "better-position" principle. "That legal principle goes to the heart of Hamilton's theory of the case, i.e., that Dr. Scott's failure to refer Hamilton to a perinatologist during Hamilton's February 25, 2005, visit prevented timely treatment that, according to Dr. Bruner's testimony, would have saved Tristian's life." Consequently, the Supreme Court held the trial court's refusal to give such instructions constituted reversible error. View "Hamilton v. Scott" on Justia Law

In November 2013, Vincent Selvidge died of a heart attack. His surviving wife and children (plaintiffs) sought to sue defendant, a physician who treated Selvidge, for medical malpractice. Plaintiffs filed their suit on January 28, 2015; 85 days after the one-year statute of limitations to bring a medical malpractice claim had expired. Defendant moved for summary judgment on the ground that the suit was untimely. Plaintiffs claimed they were entitled to tolling of the limitation period for 90 days pursuant to section 364 because they provided notice to defendant on October 24, 2014, of their intention to sue him. By their reasoning, the statute of limitations did not expire until February 2, 2015, and their suit was timely. To prove they provided notice to defendant, plaintiffs submitted a declaration from the legal assistant to plaintiffs’ attorney, who mailed the notice of intent to a Southern California address listed for defendant on the medical board’s Web site. She also called the facility in Rancho Cordova where defendant had treated Selvidge and learned defendant was no longer an employee. Although the legal assistant declared that the notice was not returned as undelivered, she did not send the letter by certified mail or prepare a proof of service. Defendant claimed to have never received the notice of intent. The address he provided to the medical board, and to which the letter was mailed, was not defendant’s residence but an address he used for billing purposes. The address was owned by a business service company that received mail on behalf of defendant and his medical corporation, to which he was the sole employee. In October of 2014, defendant estimated he checked his mailbox at the address he provided to the medical board once or twice a month. The trial court granted defendant’s summary judgment motion, finding that because defendant did not have actual notice of plaintiffs’ intention to file an action against him, plaintiffs were required to comply with the mailing provisions found in Code Civ. Proc. section 1013(a). The issue this appeal presented for the Court of Appeal's review was whether mailing a notice of intent to file an action to a physician’s address of record with the Medical Board of California provided adequate notification of a potential medical malpractice suit under the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act. The Court held that it did, and accordingly reversed the trial court’s determination to the contrary. View "Selvidge v. Tang" on Justia Law

Defendants sought ex parte interviews with a number of non-party medical providers in this medical malpractice action. Because of this, an issue arose regarding the scope of the physician–patient privilege in medical-malpractice actions. Section 13-90-107(1)(d), C.R.S. (2017), prohibited certain medical providers from revealing, in testimony or otherwise, information about a patient gathered in the course of treating that patient. That prohibition, however, was not unlimited. The dispute, as presented to the Colorado Supreme Court, did not implicate the physician–patient relationship between Kelley Bailey (“Bailey”) and Defendants, meaning section 107(1)(d)(I) was inapplicable. Instead, the issue here was whether the non-party medical providers were “in consultation with” Defendants such that section 107(1)(d)(II) removed that typically privileged information from the protection of the physician–patient privilege. The Supreme Court held the non-party medical providers were not in consultation with Defendants for the purposes of section 107(1)(d)(II). However, the Court remanded this case to the trial court for consideration of whether the Baileys impliedly waived the physician–patient privilege for the non-party medical providers. On remand, if the trial court concluded that the Baileys did waive that privilege, it should reconsider whether there is any risk that: (1) ex parte interviews with the non-party medical providers would inadvertently reveal residually privileged information; or (2) Defendants would exert undue influence on the non-party medical providers in the course of any ex parte interviews. View "In re Bailey v. Hermacinski" on Justia Law

Companion appeals raised questions about when a jury considering a medical malpractice case might also be instructed on issues of ordinary negligence. Sterling Brown Sr. sued the defendant medical centers and medical professionals individually and on behalf of his wife, Gwendolyn Brown, after she suffered catastrophic brain damage, allegedly from oxygen deprivation while undergoing a procedure to relieve back pain. Mrs. Brown died while this suit was pending, and the complaint was amended to add a wrongful death claim. A trial in which the court instructed the jury on both ordinary negligence and medical malpractice resulted in an award of nearly $22 million. A divided Court of Appeals affirmed. The Georgia Supreme Court granted the defendants’ petitions for certiorari to consider their argument that the Court of Appeals erred by concluding that the evidence supported a claim of ordinary negligence. "The plaintiffs’ case of medical malpractice was very strong. But a very strong case of medical malpractice does not become a case of ordinary negligence simply due to the egregiousness of the medical malpractice." The Supreme Court concluded the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that an ordinary negligence instruction was authorized by evidence that a doctor defendant responded inadequately to medical data provided by certain medical equipment during a medical procedure. Because the verdict was a general one such that the Court could not determine that the jury did not rely on this erroneous theory of liability, it reversed with instructions that the Court of Appeals on remand order a full retrial as to defendants. View "Southeastern Pain Specialists, P.C. v. Brown" on Justia Law

Johnny Eades sought treatment from numerous healthcare providers, including Petitioners Palmetto Primary Care Physicians, LLC and Trident Emergency Physicians, LLC, for a blockage and aneurysm of the left iliac artery in July and August of 2009. Three years later, Mr. Eades and his wife filed a Notice of Intent to File Suit (NOI) to bring a medical malpractice action in Charleston County, South Carolina. Two days after filing the NOI, the Eades filed answers to interrogatories listing Dr. Paul Skudder as an expert witness, along with an affidavit from Skudder pursuant to section 15-79-125 of the South Carolina Code (Supp. 2016). This case required the South Carolina Supreme Court to decide whether an expert witness affidavit submitted prior to the commencement of a medical malpractice action complied with section 15-36-100(A) of the South Carolina Code (Supp. 2016). The trial court found the affidavit insufficient based on the expert's practice area and dismissed the NOI. The Supreme Court reversed, finding the statute permitted the production of an affidavit from an expert who did not practice in the same area of medicine as the allegedly negligent doctor. View "Eades v. Palmetto Cardiovascular" on Justia Law

Johnny Eades sought treatment from numerous healthcare providers, including Petitioners Palmetto Primary Care Physicians, LLC and Trident Emergency Physicians, LLC, for a blockage and aneurysm of the left iliac artery in July and August of 2009. Three years later, Mr. Eades and his wife filed a Notice of Intent to File Suit (NOI) to bring a medical malpractice action in Charleston County, South Carolina. Two days after filing the NOI, the Eades filed answers to interrogatories listing Dr. Paul Skudder as an expert witness, along with an affidavit from Skudder pursuant to section 15-79-125 of the South Carolina Code (Supp. 2016). This case required the South Carolina Supreme Court to decide whether an expert witness affidavit submitted prior to the commencement of a medical malpractice action complied with section 15-36-100(A) of the South Carolina Code (Supp. 2016). The trial court found the affidavit insufficient based on the expert's practice area and dismissed the NOI. The Supreme Court reversed, finding the statute permitted the production of an affidavit from an expert who did not practice in the same area of medicine as the allegedly negligent doctor. View "Eades v. Palmetto Cardiovascular" on Justia Law

Jackson HMA moved for summary judgment on Evelyn Harris’s medical negligence claims, arguing that Harris failed to present expert medical testimony in support thereof. The trial court denied the motion for summary judgment. Because Harris failed to present sworn expert medical testimony to support her claims, no genuine issue of material fact exists. This Court reverses the trial court’s judgment and renders judgment in favor of Jackson HMA. View "Jackson HMA, LLC v. Harris" on Justia Law