Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

We previously wrote about the Indiana Court of Appeals decision in Arrendale v. Am. Imaging & MRI, LLC in which the Indiana Court of Appeals held that the apparent agency principles set forth in the Indiana Supreme Court’s opinion in Sword v. NKC Hosps., Inc., 714 N.E.2d 142 (Ind. 1999) and Restatement (Second) of Torts section 429 applied to non-hospital medical providers. The Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer and agreed, holding Sword and Section 429’s apparent agency principles apply to non-hospital medical entities that provide healthcare to patients.

The Plaintiff in Arrendale, Harold Arrendale (“Arrendale”), sued American Imaging & MRI, LLC, also known as Marion Open MRI (“Marion Open MRI”), an outpatient diagnostic imaging center, and radiologist Dr. Alexander Boutselis for medical malpractice relating to MRIs Arrendale underwent at Marion Open MRI that were interpreted by Dr. Boutselis. While Dr. Boutselis was not an employee of Marion Open MRI, Arrendale sought to hold Marion Open MRI responsible for his malpractice as an apparent agent of Marion Open MRI, which, unlike Dr. Boutselis, was not qualified under the Indiana Medical Malpractice Act. Marion Open MRI never indicated to Arrendale that Dr. Boutselis was an independent contractor, Dr. Boutselis’ opinions and conclusions in his radiology report were on Marion Open MRI’s letterhead, and Marion Open MRI advertised its services stating in a building sign that patients could “Save $$ on your next MRI!”

The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Marion Open MRI because Indiana’s appellate courts had not yet applied Sword outside the hospital setting. The Indiana Supreme Court in Sword adopted the Restatement (Second) of Torts section 429 with regards to care provided in the hospital setting. Section 429 provides that “[o]ne who employs an independent contractor to perform services for another which are accepted in the reasonable belief that the services are being rendered by the employer or by his servants, is subject to liability for physical harm caused by the negligence of the contractor in supplying such services, to the same extent as though the employer were supplying them himself or by his servants.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 429 (1965).

The Indiana Supreme Court recently reversed the Indiana Court of Appeals’ denial of a medical malpractice claimant’s request to amend her complaint to allege a violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd, a federal law also known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (“EMTALA”). The claimant, Betty Miller, had sued various health-care providers under medical malpractice theories claiming her mentally ill grandson, Zachary Miller, should not have been released from Community Howard Regional Health Hospital’s (“Community Howard”) emergency room after he had arrived at Community Howard’s emergency room requesting admission for his mental illness and dangerous propensities. She later sought to amend her complaint to include an EMTALA claim.

EMTALA was enacted by Congress to deter hospitals from the practice “dumping” indigent patients. EMTALA provides that a hospital emergency department must screen individuals for “emergency medical condition[s]” and either stabilize the condition or transfer the patient as permitted under the law. However, relevant to the issue presented, any legal claim under the law must be brought no more than two years after the date of the violation.

Federal law can preempt state law either implicitly or explicitly when provisions of the federal and state laws are at odds. EMTALA contains an express preemption provision which provides that “this section does not preempt any State or local law requirement, except to the extent that requirement directly conflicts with a requirement of this section.” 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd(f). A year before Miller, in Williams v. Inglis, the Indiana Court of Appeals had held that EMTALA’s two-year statute of limitations preempted Indiana Trial Rule 15(C)’s provision allowing amendments to timely-filed complaints to relate back to the time the complaint was filed. In, other words, in Williams, the Court of Appeals had held that because EMTALA provided a claim had to be filed within two years after the violation, this conflicted with the otherwise liberal right to amend a complaint under Indiana law and refused to allow an amendment to relate back to add an EMTALA claim after the two years. And, the Indiana Supreme Court had refused to consider Williams’ request for review, so the Court of Appeals had simply followed its past precedent in Miller to deny the same request. Luckily for Miller, unlike in Williams, the Indiana Supreme Court agreed to accept her appeal of the issue in her petition to transfer.

The Indiana Court of Appeals recently directed a trial court to dismiss a particular theory of liability pursued by a medical malpractice plaintiff after completion of the medical review panel process because the plaintiff’s proposed complaint did not encompass the theory. In Holsten v. Faur, Linda Holsten (“Holsten”) filed a medical malpractice and wrongful death lawsuit arising out of medical care her husband, Paul Holsten (“Paul”), received at an urgent care facility and hospital. Under Indiana’s Medical Malpractice Act, medical malpractice claimants must file a proposed complaint before the Indiana Department of Insurance and obtain an opinion from a medical review panel before they can prosecute their medical malpractice claims in court.

Holsten filed a proposed complaint specifically alleging the defendants committed malpractice in not ordering a chest x-ray (“the x-ray malpractice theory”) and in ordering steroids (“the steroid malpractice theory”), which she alleged resulted in her husband’s death of necrotizing staphylococcus aureus pneumonia. The medical review panel formed to review the case found the defendants failed to comply with the appropriate standard of care; however, they were unable to determine if the defendants’ conduct was a factor in Paul’s death. After receiving the opinion and speaking with the panelists, Holsten filed a state court complaint that was identical in pertinent parts to her proposed complaint, except that she removed the steroid malpractice theory and added another theory which she learned from one of the panelists, that is, that the hospital’s sepsis protocol was not followed (“the sepsis malpractice theory”).

The hospital filed for partial summary judgment arguing that Holsten’s sepsis malpractice theory had not been presented to the medical review panel as required by the Medical Malpractice Act. The trial court agreed with the hospital and entered partial summary judgment in favor of the hospital as to the sepsis malpractice theory. Agreeing that Holsten had failed to present the sepsis malpractice theory to the panel, but that the trial court did not, therefore, have subject matter jurisdiction as to that theory, the Indiana Court of Appeals vacated the trial court’s summary judgment order and remanded the case with instructions for the trial court to dismiss, without prejudice, Holsten’s sepsis malpractice theory of liability.

We previously blogged about the Seventh Circuit’s certified question to the Indiana Supreme Court: “Whether Indiana’s Medical Malpractice Act applies to claims brought against qualified providers for individuals who did not receive medical care from the provider, but who are injured as a result of the provider’s negligence in providing medical treatment to someone else?” In Cutchin v. Beard, the Indiana Supreme Court answered this question in the affirmative.

The Indiana Patient’s Compensation Fund will often take the position in claims for excess compensation that the Medical Malpractice Act does not apply when it would mean escaping liability for otherwise viable claims. In Cutchin, the Fund secured a dismissal of the excess damages claim brought against it by Jeffrey Cutchin. Cutchin had settled a malpractice claim with a qualified medical provider who had negligently prescribed opiates and other medications to Sylvian Watson. Watson had run a red light and killed Cutchin’s wife and daughter. Watson claimed she could not lift her foot from the accelerator in time to stop her vehicle due to the opiates and other medications prescribed by the provider. Despite the settlement, the Fund sought to avoid paying excess damages. Upon appeal of the federal district court’s ruling, the Seventh Circuit certified the above question, as well as another that went unanswered.

In arriving at its decision, the Indiana Supreme Court first addressed the Act’s definition of “patient” found in Indiana Code Section 34-18-2-22: “an individual who receives or should have received health care from a health care provider, under a contract, express or implied, and includes a person having a claim of any kind, whether derivative or otherwise, as a result of alleged malpractice on the part of a health care provider. Derivative claims include the claims of a parent or parents, guardian, trustee, child, relative, attorney, or any other representative of the patient including claims for loss of services, loss of consortium, expenses, and other similar claims.” The Court found this definition creates two categories of “patient” under the Act: the first is the traditional patient who receives care by a provider; the second is a third party whose claim results from a provider’s medical malpractice to a traditional patient.

The Indiana Court of Appeals recently extended the Indiana Supreme Court’s Sword apparent agency holding to a non-hospital medical provider in Arrendale v. Am. Imaging & MRI, LLC. At issue in Sword and Arrendale was whether medical facilities could be held liable for the negligence of non-employee medical providers contracted to perform services for patients at the facilities.

The Indiana Supreme Court in Sword v. NKC Hosps., Inc., 714 N.E.2d 142 (Ind. 1999) adopted the Restatement (Second) of Torts section 429 (1965) dealing with apparent agency in the hospital setting, which states that “[o]ne who employs an independent contractor to perform services for another which are accepted in the reasonable belief that the services are being rendered by the employer or by his servants, is subject to liability for physical harm caused by the negligence of the contractor in supplying such services, to the same extent as though the employer were supplying them himself or by his servants.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 429 (1965). Under Sword, a judge or jury must consider the totality of the circumstances surrounding a hospital’s manifestations and a patient’s reliance on such manifestations, including the reasonableness of a patient’s belief that a hospital or its employees were rendering the care provided. “A hospital will be deemed to have held itself out as the provider of care unless it gives notice to the patient that it is not the provider of care and that the care is provided by a physician who is an independent contractor and not subject to the control and supervision of the hospital.” Sword, 714 N.E.2d at 152. Hospitals can generally avoid liability by giving meaningful notice to patients, acknowledged at the time of admission. If hospitals do not give meaningful notice, if the patient has no special knowledge of a hospital’s relationship with its independent contractor physicians, and if there is no reason the patient should have known of the relationship, then reliance is presumed, and a hospital can be held liable for the negligence of its independent contractor physicians.

In Arrendale, the Plaintiff, Harold Arrendale (“Arrendale”), filed a medical negligence lawsuit against Marion Open MRI and radiologist Dr. Alexander Boutselis and other healthcare providers arising out of their failure to diagnose and treat an arteriovenous fistula of his spine. In his lawsuit, Arrendale alleged Marion Open MRI was vicariously liable for Dr. Boutselis’ negligence because Dr. Boutselis was “an employee and/or agent” of Marion Open MRI. Marion Open MRI moved for summary judgment arguing that it could not be held liable for Dr. Boutselis because he was not an employee of Marion Open MRI, but rather an independent contractor. Marion Open MRI argued that the holding in Sword should be limited to hospitals only and not applied to non-hospital medical facilities. The trial court, while indicating it tended to agree with Arrendale’s position, granted Marion Open MRI’s motion reasoning that Indiana’s appellate courts should resolve the issue.

The Indiana Court of Appeals recently reversed a trial court’s order on a motion for preliminary determination filed by a dentist in a dental malpractice case directing a patient to redact portions of her submission to a medical review panel formed to review the case. In White v. Nichols, Millie White (“White”) filed a dental malpractice case against John Lee Nichols, D.D.S. and John L. Nichols, D.D.S., P.C. (“Dr. Nichols”) as a result of injuries stemming from the placement of a dental bridge. Prior to filing the lawsuit, White notified the Indiana Dental Association of her complaints, and in response, the Indiana Dental Association provided White and Dr. Nichols a “resolution letter” setting forth a panel of dentists’ findings and recommendations. White’s submission to the medical review panel included the text of the resolution letter. Dr. Nichols filed a motion for preliminary determination asking the trial court to order White to redact the contents of the resolution letter from her submission arguing the letter was privileged and inadmissible. The trial court ordered White to redact the contents of the resolution letter and White appealed.

Under the Indiana Medical Malpractice Act (MMA), when bringing a medical malpractice claim against a qualified provider patients must file a proposed complaint before the Indiana Department of Insurance and present the proposed complaint to a medical review panel and receive an opinion from the panel before prosecuting their case in court. During the medical review panel process, the jurisdiction of a trial court is limited. The MMA provides that a trial court has jurisdiction to “(1) preliminary determine an affirmative defense or issue of law or fact that may be preliminarily determined under the Indiana Rules of Procedure; or (2) compel discovery in accordance with the Indiana Rules of Procedure.” Ind. Code § 34-18-11-1.

White argued on appeal that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to order her to redact the resolution letter from her submission. Examining the limited scope of jurisdiction afforded trial courts under the MMA, the Indiana Court of Appeals agreed and held the trial court exceeded its jurisdiction in ordering White to redact the resolution letter from her submission. The Court found Dr. Nichols’ request did not concern a discovery issue, as both White and Dr. Nichols already had the resolution letter. The Court found that although privilege in some cases could be considered an affirmative defense, in this case, the privilege was not Dr. Nichols’ privilege but rather a third party’s privilege and therefore was not Dr. Nichols’ affirmative defense as to White’s claim against him. And lastly, the Court found Dr. Nichols’ motion did not request the trial court to preliminarily determine any issues of law or fact that may be preliminarily determined under Indiana Trial Rule 12(d).