Crabb v. Bishop Clarkson Memorial Hosp., S-98-798
| Decision Date | 02 April 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. S-98-798,S-98-798 |
| Citation | 256 Neb. 636,591 N.W.2d 756 |
| Parties | Marie A. CRABB, Appellant, v. BISHOP CLARKSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, Appellee. |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. Jurisdiction: Appeal and Error. Before reaching the legal issues presented for review, it is the duty of an appellate court to determine whether it has jurisdiction over the matter before it.
2. Jurisdiction: Words and Phrases. Subject matter jurisdiction is the power of a tribunal to hear and determine a case of the general class or category to which the proceedings in question belong and to deal with the general subject matter involved.
3. Jurisdiction. Parties cannot confer subject matter jurisdiction upon a judicial tribunal by either acquiescence or consent, nor may subject matter jurisdiction be created by waiver, estoppel, consent, or conduct of the parties.
4. Actions: Jurisdiction. The absence of subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time by any party or by the court sua sponte.
5. Workers' Compensation: Judgments: Courts: Jurisdiction. While it is true that in civil cases a court of general jurisdiction has inherent power to vacate or modify its own judgment during the term in which it was rendered, that rule does not apply to statutory tribunals such as the Workers' Compensation Court, for it is a tribunal of limited and special jurisdiction and has only such authority as has been conferred on it by statute.
6. Workers' Compensation. The Workers' Compensation Court's powers are properly limited to those delineated by statute.
7. Workers' Compensation. The Workers' Compensation Court is empowered to modify an award only by those means specifically delineated in the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Act.
8. Workers' Compensation: Jurisdiction. Inherent within the Workers' Compensation Court's exercise of its limited powers is the power to determine whether it has jurisdiction over the matter before it.
9. Workers' Compensation: Jurisdiction. A determination by the trial court that it lacks jurisdiction, thereby summarily dismissing a case, is a summary proceeding within the inherent power of the Workers' Compensation Court.
10. Jurisdiction: Appeal and Error. When a lower court does not gain jurisdiction over the case before it, an appellate court also lacks the jurisdiction to review the merits of the claim.
Marie A. (Crabb) Stevens, pro se.
Robert D. Mullin, Jr., of McGrath, North, Mullin & Kratz, Omaha, for appellee.
On remand, a single judge (trial court) of the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court concluded that there was no legal or factual basis to set aside the trial court's prior order of dismissal. As a result, the petition filed by Marie A. Crabb was dismissed, and Crabb appeals.
Before reaching the legal issues presented for review, it is the duty of an appellate court to determine whether it has jurisdiction over the matter before it. Bonge v. County of Madison, 253 Neb. 903, 573 N.W.2d 448 (1998).
On January 2, 1990, Crabb was employed by Bishop Clarkson Memorial Hospital (Hospital) when she suffered a needle-stick injury during the course of her employment. In May 1992, while in the process of donating her own blood for use in a later surgery, Crabb learned that she had hepatitis C. On January 15, 1993, Crabb filed an application At trial, Crabb testified that the needle with which she was stuck was not one she had been using on a patient. She asserted that the needle had been placed on her work tray by someone else and that she had no way of knowing where the needle came from or on which patient the needle had previously been used.
for workers' compensation benefits, alleging that the needle-stick injury in 1990 caused her to contract hepatitis C.
At the time of the needle stick, Crabb was working on the dialysis-transplant floor of the Hospital. She administered first aid to herself and reported the incident to her supervisor. A test of Crabb's blood done at that time showed she was negative for HIV. There was no test available in January 1990 for a hepatitis C infection.
Dr. Thomas J. Safranek, state epidemiologist for the Nebraska Department of Health, testified on behalf of the Hospital. Safranek identified various risk factors associated with contracting hepatitis C. He stated that the most overwhelming risk factor for hepatitis C is blood transfusions but that other risk categories include intravenous drug use; multiplicity of sexual partners; living in a household with another individual who has hepatitis C; and occupational risks assumed by medical professionals, including dentists, surgeons, and hemodialysis nurses. He also noted that it was documented in the medical literature that transmission of hepatitis C could occur through being tattooed, as well as through other types of percutaneous exposure. Safranek stated that once contracted, the hepatitis C infection can remain undetected for a long period of time.
Crabb's medical expert, Dr. Michael F. Sorrell, testified by deposition that hepatitis C was primarily transmitted by blood transfusions, blood products, intravenous drug use, and needle sticks. He further stated that there are a number of patients with what are called community-acquired infections, in which the cause of transmission is unknown.
At trial, Crabb denied having blood transfusions at any time in her life. However, records from Ehrling Bergquist Strategic Hospital at Offutt Air Force Base showed that Dr. Edwin C. Schafer had recorded the following on Crabb's medical history: In addition, a July 1992 medical report written by Dr. Jeremiah P. Donovan, medical director of hepatic transplantation at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), referred repeatedly to prior transfusions: Schafer's and Donovan's overall impressions were that Crabb had chronic hepatitis C and that there were multiple reasons why she might have developed hepatitis C. Both doctors noted that Crabb had received multiple blood transfusions at times when many of the screening tests for hepatitis C were not available.
The evidence at trial also showed that Crabb had liver tests on June 7, 1982, and March 9, 1989, both prior to the needle stick, which tests showed abnormal liver function. Safranek stated that abnormal liver tests could denote prior liver disease, including a chronic hepatitis C infection. Crabb also admitted she had two tattoos. One was done in 1979 in Denver, and the other was done in 1980 in California. However, Crabb testified that each had been done in a "clean environment."
Safranek testified that based upon his review of the evidence and the literature about hepatitis C, he was unable to determine within a reasonable degree of medical certainty when Crabb acquired hepatitis C. He stated that his review of Crabb's medical records from 1982 to 1989 showed abnormal liver function tests
in a consistent fashion without major fluctuations for approximately an eight-year period prior to the needle stick episode. The two times they were tested prior to the needle stick indicated abnormal liver function.
... It suggested to me whatever had been going on had been going on for a number of years....
Safranek was uncertain whether it was more probable than not that Crabb would have contracted hepatitis C prior to the date of the needle-stick injury. He opined that there were multiple opportunities throughout Crabb's life when she could have contracted hepatitis C and that it was impossible to say when it occurred.
Sorrell initially opined that Crabb's hepatitis C was contracted prior to the needle-stick injury. He later reversed this opinion, stating that he had based his original opinion on the fact that Crabb's liver function tests prior to the time of the needle-stick injury were abnormal. He stated that the elevated liver enzyme reading from 1989 could have been caused by a medication prescribed for Crabb at that time for musculoskeletal complaints. Sorrell opined with a reasonable degree of medical probability that Crabb did contract hepatitis C after an inadvertent needle stick while working in the renal dialysis unit at the Hospital in 1990.
The trial court dismissed Crabb's petition because she failed to prove that the needle-stick injury caused her to contract hepatitis C, and the dismissal was affirmed by a three-judge review panel of the Workers' Compensation Court. Crabb appealed to the Nebraska Court of Appeals, which affirmed, and her subsequent motion for rehearing was overruled. This court denied Crabb's petitions for further review on November 22, 1995.
On July 5, 1996, Crabb filed another petition, claiming that the trial court's prior ruling was tainted by fraud. This second petition was filed with the same docket number as the first case. The Hospital moved to dismiss the second petition on the basis that it was barred by res judicata and that the trial court did not have jurisdiction to modify the prior dismissal. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss, and Crabb sought review by a three-judge review panel. The review panel reversed the dismissal because it concluded the trial court did not have the authority to grant a motion for summary judgment or to otherwise grant a judgment on the pleadings.
On remand from the three-judge review panel, the trial court found that the second petition recited the same allegations set forth in the first petition and, in addition, alleged that the...
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