Blevins v. Hamilton Medical Center, Inc.

• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Knoll
• Citation: Blevins v. Hamilton Medical Center, Inc., 959 So.2d 440 (La. 2007)
• Decision Date: 29 June 2007
• Docket Number: No. 2007-CC-127.,2007-CC-127.
• Parties: Richard BLEVINS v. HAMILTON MEDICAL CENTER, INC. d/b/a Southwest Medical Center-Lafayette.

959 So.2d 440

Richard BLEVINS v. HAMILTON MEDICAL CENTER, INC. d/b/a Southwest Medical Center-Lafayette.

No. 2007-CC-127.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

June 29, 2007.

KNOLL, Justice.

This personal injury claim concerns a suit against a private hospital for injuries allegedly sustained when a hospital bed moved causing plaintiff to lose his balance and fall. The issue presented is whether plaintiff's claims fall within the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act ("LMMA").

At the same time plaintiff filed his petition, he contemporaneously requested a medical review panel based upon the same allegations in his petition. Before any discovery was conducted, the defendant hospital filed a dilatory exception of prematurity on the basis that the medical review panel had not yet deliberated. The district court denied the exception in part and sustained the exception in part, finding three of the allegations pertaining to the hospital bed sounded in general negligence, while the remaining six allegations sounded in medical malpractice, and severed the non-medical malpractice claims from the medical malpractice ones. The court of appeal reversed, sustaining the exception as to all of the allegations. We granted writs to address the correctness vel non of the court of appeal, i.e., whether the three allegations regarding plaintiff's hospital bed sound in general negligence or fall within the parameters of the LMMA. Richard Blevins v. Hamilton Medical Center, Inc., 07-0127 (La.3/23/07), 951 So.2d 1103. For the following reasons, we find these allegations sound in general negligence and reverse the judgment of the court of appeal.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This civil case originated with a petition for damages filed by plaintiff, Richard Blevins, in the Fifteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of Lafayette on January 19, 2006, naming as defendant, Hamilton Medical Center, Inc., d/b/a Southwest Medical Center-Lafayette ("SMC"). In his petition for damages, plaintiff alleged that on or about January 11, 2005, he was admitted to SMC for incision and drainage of an infected wound of his left groin. On January 17, 2005, while still a recuperating patient at defendant's facility, plaintiff fell in his room when his hospital bed rolled as he attempted to get out of the bed to use a bedside commode. With the movement of the bed, plaintiff lost his balance and fell, causing a tear of the meniscus of his right knee.

In his petition, plaintiff also stated he had filed a request for a medical review panel to review the conduct of those individuals who participated and/or furnished medical care to plaintiff during his hospitalization with regard to his fall of January 17, 2005, and who were covered under the provisions of the LMMA.¹ Plaintiff further alleged that his fall was also proximately caused by the negligence and fault of defendant SMC in the following non-exclusive respects:

(a)Failing to properly monitor and provide adequate and necessary care to plaintiff;

(b)Failing to exercise the requisite amount of care toward a patient that the particular patient's condition required;

(c)Failing to protect a patient from the dangers that may result from the patient's physical and mental incapacities, as well as from external circumstances particularly within the hospital's control;

(d) Failing to have in force adequate policies, procedures and equipment to safeguard and prevent falls of patients such as plaintiff;

(e)Failing to exercise a reasonable degree of skill and competence possessed and required of hospitals;

(f)Failing to furnish the patient with diligent and skillful care; and

(g)Failing to furnish patient with equipment in proper working condition;

(h)Failing to keep the patient's bed in the lowest position with the wheels locked; and (i)Failing to properly instruct the patient on proper use of and safety with regard to his bed.

SMC, a qualified health care provider pursuant to the LMMA, filed a dilatory exception of prematurity to plaintiff's petition for damages on the basis that plaintiff's allegations raised in his petition for damages were identical to the allegations he raised in his request for a medical review panel, which panel had not yet deliberated nor rendered an opinion concerning the matter, and therefore, the lawsuit was premature.² Plaintiff answered that while some of his allegations fell within the purview of the LMMA, the district court was at liberty to determine which of plaintiff's allegations fell outside the LMMA's provisions and allow plaintiff to proceed in district court on those allegations of ordinary negligence.

The district court heard argument on defendant's exception and granted the exception as to the medical malpractice allegations (a) through (f), but denied the exception as to allegations (g) through (i), as those allegations sounded in ordinary negligence. By dismissing plaintiff's claims alleged in (a) through (f), the district court severed the malpractice claims from the ordinary negligence claims.

SMC applied for supervisory writs from the district court's denial of its exception of prematurity as to allegations (g) through (i). A five-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeal, with three judges signing, granted the writ and made it peremptory, reasoning:

The claims raised by Respondent are properly raised under the Medical Malpractice Act. La.R.S. 40:1299.41; Taylor v. Christus Health Southwestern Louisiana, 04-627 (La.App. 3 Cir. 11/10/04), 886 So.2d 696. Accordingly, we find error in the judgment rendered below and reverse. Relator's exception of prematurity is maintained, and Respondent's petition is dismissed without prejudice, at his cost.

Richard Blevins v. Hamilton Medical Center, Inc., 06-01270, p. 1 (La.App. 3 Cir. 12/22/06). Two judges dissented, with the following language:

We disagree with the majority opinion because the faulty equipment at issue is not intricately connected to the medical care provided by the hospital. Taylor v. Christus Health Southwestern Louisiana, 04-627 (La.App. 3 Cir. 11/10/04).[,] 866[886] So.2d 696 (Cooks, J., concurring). We would therefore deny the writ application as there was no error in the trial court's ruling.

Blevins, 06-01270 at p. 1. We granted plaintiff's writ application to address the correctness of the appellate court's decision regarding the hospital bed claims contained in allegations (g) through (i) of the petition.

LAW AND DISCUSSION

The dilatory exception of prematurity provided in La.Code Civ. Proc. art. 926 questions whether the cause of action has matured to the point where it is ripe for judicial determination as an action is premature when it is brought before the right to enforce it has accrued. Williamson v. Hospital Service Dist. No. 1 of Jefferson, 04-0451, p. 4 (La.12/1/04), 888 So.2d 782, 785(finding alleged negligence of hospital in failing to repair wheelchair and in failing to make sure that wheelchair was in proper working condition did not arise from "medical malpractice"); Spradlin v. Acadia-St. Landry Medical Foundation, 98-1977, p. 4 (La.2/29/00), 758 So.2d 116, 119(alleged patient "dumping" case sounded in malpractice). Under the LMMA, a medical malpractice claim against a private qualified health care provider is subject to dismissal on a timely filed exception of prematurity if such claim has not first been reviewed by a pre-suit medical review panel. Williamson, 04-0451 at p. 4, 888 So.2d at 785; La.Rev. Stat. 40:1299.47(A). This exception is the proper procedural mechanism for a qualified health care provider to invoke when a medical malpractice plaintiff has failed to submit the claim for decision by a medical review panel before filing suit against the provider. Spradlin, 98-1977 at p. 4, 758 So.2d at 119; La.Code Civ. Proc. art. 926; Frank L. Maraist & Harry T. Lemmon, 1 Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Civil Procedure § 6.6, 116 (West 1999). In such situations, the exception of prematurity neither challenges nor attempts to defeat any of the elements of the plaintiff's cause of action. Spradlin, 98-1977 at p. 4, 758 So.2d at 119; Maraist & Lemmon, supra. Rather, the defendant asserts that the plaintiff has failed to take some preliminary step necessary to make the controversy ripe for judicial involvement. Spradlin, 98-1977 at p. 4, 758 So.2d at 119; Maraist & Lemmon, supra. The burden of proving prematurity is on the exceptor, in this case the defendant health care provider, who must show that it is entitled to a medical review panel because the allegations fall within the LMMA. Williamson, 04-0451 at p. 4, 888 So.2d at 785.

While the grounds for the exception of prematurity clearly arise out of the LMMA's procedural requirement that a medical malpractice claim must first be reviewed by a medical review panel before the commencement of litigation, the dilatory exception of prematurity, which "merely retards the progress of the action," must be tried in the district court. La.Code Civ. Proc. arts. 923, 926 & 929. Moreover, unlike our Code of Civil Procedure, the LMMA provides no procedure for the trying of the exception before a medical review panel. See La.Code Civ. Proc. art. 929. Therefore, despite SMC's contention to the contrary, whether the matter should proceed to a review panel is a determination for the courts in the trial of the exception of prematurity, and not the yet to be convened panel.

Moreover, this court has, without exception, emphasized that the LMMA and its limitations on tort liability for a qualified health care provider apply strictly to claims "arising from medical malpractice," and that all other tort liability on the part of the qualified health care provider is governed by general tort law. Coleman v. Deno, 01-1517, pp. 15-16 (La.1/25/02), 813 So.2d 303, 315(finding claim for alleged wrongful transfer from one emergency room to another of patient whose left arm was amputated following transfer sounded in malpractice); Williamson, 04-0...