WV Supreme Court Ruling Clarifies Scope of Medical Malpractice Statute
In a ruling issued last month, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia ruled that a circuit court should have given the plaintiffs the opportunity to amend their complaint against two local hospitals in accordance with the West Virginia Medical Professional Liability Act (MPLA), rather than suffer the dismissal of their lawsuit for failure to comply with its provisions. Blankenship v. Ethicon, Inc., 2007 WL 30344262 (W.Va.).
In 2003, the plaintiffs filed suit against several defendants, including Charleston Area Medical Center and Herbert J. Thomas Memorial Hospital, resulting from the implantation of contaminated sutures. The plaintiffs asserted several causes of action against the defendants, including product liability claims for negligence, strict liability, and breach of express and implied warranties, violations of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. The plaintiffs sought compensatory and punitive damages and equitable relief in the form of an investigation by the hospitals to investigate and determine “what patients were implanted with the Vicryl sutures and to then inform the patients so identified of the defective condition of those sutures.”
The hospitals alleged that any claims against them must be pled according to the MPLA, which required the plaintiffs to obtain a certificate of merit for their claims and to provide the hospitals with pre-suit notice of the action. The hospitals moved for summary judgment on the grounds the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by their failure to comply with the MPLA.
The Circuit Court of Kanawha County granted the hospitals’ motion for summary judgment and the plaintiffs appealed. In December 2004, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the Circuit Court for reconsideration in light of Boggs v. Camden-Clark Memorial Hospital Corp., 609 S.E.2d 917 (W.Va. 2004), which the Supreme Court had just issued, and which addressed what kinds of actions were subject to the MPLA’s requirements (“Fraud, spoliation of evidence, or negligent hiring are no more related to ‘medical professional liability’ or ‘health care services’ than battery, larceny, or libel. There is simply no way to apply the MPLA to such claims.”). After reconsidering its decision in light of Boggs, the Circuit Court again granted the hospitals’ motion for summary judgment, which led to this appeal.
Following the decision in Boggs, however, the Supreme Court had issued Gray v. Mena, 625 S.E.2d 326 (W.Va. 2005), which clarified the Boggs opinion by pointing out that the definition of “medical professional liability,” as contained in the MPLA, included “liability damages resulting from the death or injury of a person for any tort based upon health care services rendered or which should have been rendered.” Thus, there was an issue as to whether the Blankenship plaintiffs' claims, which arose from the implantation of sutures (which the Supreme Court characterized as "a classic example of health care") should have been filed in compliance with the MPLA's procedures.
The Supreme Court pointed out that according to Gray, whether the MPLA applied to a certain claim, is a fact-driven question. Thus, a party’s failure to plead a claim that is governed by the MPLA did not preclude its application, meaning that even if a party, such as the plaintiffs, did not believe that its claims were governed by the MPLA, the Act may still apply, which could be fatal to the party's claims.
The Supreme Court affirmed the Circuit Court’s ruling to the extent that it held that the plaintiffs’ claims were governed by the MPLA. Because the plaintiffs had filed their action prior to the issuance of the opinion in Gray (in which the Court “caution[ed] all litigants preparing a complaint in such matters to be diligent in adhering to the requirements of the [MPLA] where the healthcare provider’s action could possibly be construed as having occurred within the context of the rendering of health care services[,]”), however, the Supreme Court did not believe that outright dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims was appropriate, and remanded the case to give the plaintiffs the opportunity to amend their complaint and comply with the MPLA.
