Donald A. Woods v. Oak Hill Community Medical Center, Inc.
| Decision Date | 03 September 1999 |
| Docket Number | 98CA837,99-LW-3974 |
| Parties | DONALD A. WOODS, Plaintiff-Appellant v. OAK HILL COMMUNITY MEDICAL CENTER, INC., Defendant-Appellee Case |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Cole & Lewis, Richard M. Lewis and Jonathan D. Blanton, Jackson Ohio, for Appellant.
Reminger & Reminger Co., L.P.A., Gwenn S. Karr, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee.
DECISION
Donald A. Woods appeals a judgment of the Jackson County Court of Common Pleas dismissing his complaint for injunctive relief and denying certification of a class action. He assigns three errors for our review:
We hold that the trial court correctly determined that the appellant lacked standing to seek an injunction and maintain a class action. Further, we find no constitutional infirmity in denying the appellant's attempt at maintaining a class action. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's dismissal of the appellant's complaint.
II.
In April 1995, the appellant arrived at the emergency room at Oak Hill Community Medical Center ("Oak Hill") complaining of chest pain. An emergency room physician administered a series of tests on the appellant, including a CKMB% blood enzyme test. The CKMB% test is designed to detect the level of CKMB, an enzyme released by the heart during a myocardial infarction, i.e., a heart attack. A "normal" level of CKMB% is less than 4 percent, while "abnormal" levels are between 4 percent and 25 percent. The appellant's test results, which were printed on a report form from Oak Hill's laboratory, showed a CKMB% ratio of 12.2 percent. However, the report form erroneously listed the "normal range" as between 4 percent and 25 percent.
The appellant remained at the hospital overnight before physicians later transferred him to Mt. Carmel Medical Center in Columbus, where he underwent heart catheterization and balloon angioplasty. A year later, the appellant filed a medical malpractice suit against Oak Hill and other defendants alleging that the hospital failed to timely diagnose and treat his myocardial infarction. During the course of the malpractice lawsuit, cardiologist John Schroeder of the Stanford University Medical School reviewed the appellant's medical records and informed him of the incorrect notation of the "normal range" on the Oak Hill laboratory's CKMB% test report form. Dr. Schroeder also informed Oak Hill about this error, which the hospital's laboratory corrected in June 1996. Oak Hill's laboratory had listed the incorrect normal range on its report forms since September 1993. The appellant's medical malpractice suit ended in January 1998 with a jury verdict in favor of the defendants.
Prior to the trial in his medical malpractice action against Oak Hill, the appellant filed suit in this case for injunctive relief and certification of a class action. The complaint alleged that the appellant had asked Oak Hill to notify other patients who received CKMB% test results with an incorrect "normal range" notation and that Oak Hill had refused to do so. The complaint further prayed that Oak Hill "should be ordered by injunction to identify the patients examined, diagnosed, and treated by using the incorrect normal range for the CKMB% test, to notify them, and to provide such further services to them as are necessary to protect their health * * *." The complaint and a separately filed motion also asked the court to certify the appellant's "injunctive relief action" as a class action.[1] The appellant defined the class as those patients who underwent CKMB% testing at Oak Hill from September 1993 through June 1996 and whose CKMB% results had shown between 4 percent and 25 percent.
Oak Hill moved to dismiss the appellant's complaint, arguing that the appellant lacked standing to sue for injunctive relief and therefore lacked standing to maintain a class action. Oak Hill also argued that the trial court, in any event, should deny the appellant's certification motion because the appellant had failed to satisfy the Civ.R. 23 requisites for a class action lawsuit. The trial court granted Oak Hill's motion to dismiss for lack of standing, which necessarily resulted in denial of the class certification motion. The court found that the appellant was already notified of the inaccuracy of his CKMB% report form. Because the appellant had already received notice of the inaccurate CKMB% form from the Oak Hill laboratory, the court found that he "lack[ed] the standing to maintain this action." The appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.
III.
We analyze the first and second assignments of error together, as they raise interrelated issues concerning the trial court's dismissal of the appellant's complaint. The trial court found that the appellant lacked standing to sue in his own right, which foreclosed the possibility that he could maintain an action on behalf of either a class or himself alone. The appellant argues in the first two assignments of error that the trial court's standing analysis was incorrect and that he met all requirements contained in Civ.R. 23 for maintaining a class action. We disagree with the appellant.
Normally, we review a trial court's determination of whether a class action may be maintained under Civ.R. 23 using an abuse of discretion standard. Hamilton v. Ohio Sav. Bank (1998), 82 Ohio St.3d 67, 70; Marks v. C.P. Chem. Co., Inc. (1987), 31 Ohio St.3d 200, syllabus. This case, however, does not involve merely the court's denial of a certification motion. Indeed, the court did not explicitly deny the appellant's motion to certify a class action under Civ.R. 23. Rather, the trial court granted Oak Hill's motion to dismiss the appellant's complaint for lack of standing to sue. In effect, the court's decision constitutes a dismissal pursuant to Civ.R. 12(B)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. See A-1 Nursing Care of Cleveland, Inc. v. Florence Nightingale Nursing, Inc. (1994), 97 Ohio App.3d 623, 626-27 (); Yo-Can, Inc. v. The Yogurt Exchange, Inc. (Dec. 17, 1998), Mahoning App. No. 95 CA 72, unreported ( A-1 Nursing Care to observe that Civ.R. 12(B)(6) motion was proper method of raising lack of standing). A dismissal for failure to state a claim presents a legal question, which we review de novo. Shockey v. Fout (1995), 106 Ohio App.3d 420, 424; Wilson v. State (1995), 101 Ohio App.3d 487, 490. Dismissal for failure to state a claim is proper if it appears beyond doubt, presuming all factual allegations in the complaint as true, that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts that would entitle him to relief. State ex rel. Edwards v. Toledo City School Dist. Bd. of Edn. (1995), 72 Ohio St.3d 106, 108; Perez v. Cleveland (1993), 66 Ohio St.3d 397, 399.
The appellant pleaded his complaint as a purported class action under Civ.R. 23. The Ohio Supreme Court has listed seven prerequisites that a potential class representative must satisfy before class action certification is appropriate. Hamilton, supra, 82 Ohio St.3d at 71; see, also, Civ.R. 23(A) and (B). Among these requisites are that the named representative is a member of the class.[2]
The standing inquiry is part and parcel of the requirement that the representative is a member of the class he seeks to represent. See Hamilton, supra, 82 Ohio St.3d at 74 (class membership requirement requires that representative have standing); see, also, Paoletti v. The Travelers Indemnity Co. (May 6, 1977), Lucas App. No. L-75-196, unreported ( that standing is a "separate and distinct" inquiry from remaining Civ.R. 23 requirements and presents an "essential threshold" plaintiff must cross before class representation may be determined), quoting Weiner v. Bank of King of Prussia (E.D.Pa.1973), 358 F.Supp. 684, 694-96. "In order to have standing to sue as a class representative, the plaintiff must possess the same interest and suffer the same injury shared by all members of the class he or she seeks to represent." Hamilton, 82 Ohio St.3d at 74, citing 5 Moore's Federal Practice (3ed.1997) 23-57, Section 23.21(1)(emphasis added). Thus, to be a proper representative in a class action seeking injunctive relief, the plaintiff must have a basis for injunctive relief in his own right. See Warner v. Waste Management, Inc. (1988), 36 Ohio St.3d 91, 97.
In arguing that he has standing to bring this class action, the appellant urges us to focus upon the contours of the class he has defined, i.e. persons who had CKMB% tests administered between September 1993 and June 1996 and who tested between 4 percent and 25 percent. Because he meets this factual description, the appellant argues that should suffice to make him a member of the class. The appellant further urges us to ignore any argument that he lacks the "same interest" simply because he has already been notified of the inaccuracies of Oak Hill's CKMB% report form. The appellant argues that rigid adherence to standing requirements "ignores the facts and circumstances which [sic] are unique to this case and which merit an exception to the rule (of standing)." We disagree with the appellant because standing is an indispensable requirement of any action, including a class action.
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