Kaiser v. Memorial Blood Center of Minneapolis, Inc., C5-91-636

• Decision Date: 24 July 1992
• Docket Number: No. C5-91-636,C5-91-636
• Citation: 486 N.W.2d 762
• Parties: Patty C. KAISER, et al., Appellants, v. MEMORIAL BLOOD CENTER OF MINNEAPOLIS, INC., and the American Red Cross, Respondents.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 762

486 N.W.2d 762

Patty C. KAISER, et al., Appellants, v. MEMORIAL BLOOD CENTER OF MINNEAPOLIS, INC., and the American Red Cross, Respondents.

No. C5-91-636.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 24, 1992.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 19, 1992.

Syllabus by the Court

The six-year statute of limitations, Minn.Stat. § 541.05, applies to this action alleging negligence on the part of blood banks in the selection of blood donors and screening of blood products.

Sharon L. Van Dyck, James R. Schwebel, Schwebel, Goetz & Sieben, P.A., Minneapolis, and Fred G. Meis, Sarah Jane Burgess, San Francisco, Cal., for appellants.

Kay Nord Hunt, David J. Dosedel, Lommen, Nelson, Cole & Stageberg, Minneapolis, for Memorial Blood Center of Mpls.

William P. Studer, Patrick C. Diamond, Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly, St. Paul, (Bruce M. Chadwick, Julia Erickson, Arnold & Porter, and Edward L. Wolff, American Red Cross, Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Washington, D.C., of counsel), for Red Cross.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

WAHL, Justice.

This case comes to us with two questions certified by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. 938 F.2d 90. We are asked to clarify Minnesota law regarding the appropriate statute of limitations that applies to an action alleging negligence against a blood bank in the screening of blood and blood products and, if the two-year statute for medical malpractice actions applies, when the statute of limitations begins to run.

The suit was filed in Hennepin County District Court on September 1, 1988, by Patty Kaiser and her husband, James Kaiser. The complaint alleges that Patty Kaiser was infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) through a blood transfusion she received in 1984. The complaint named Memorial Blood Center of Minneapolis (Memorial) and the American National Red Cross (Red Cross) as defendants and alleged that Memorial and Red Cross were negligent in selecting donors and in screening donated blood, and that they negligently failed to warn the public of the risk of HIV infection through blood transfusion.

Red Cross removed the case to federal district court on the basis of its congressional charter. Federal District Judge Donald Alsop granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment, ruling that the plaintiffs' claims were barred by Minnesota's two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice actions. Kaiser v. Memorial Blood Center, Inc., 721 F.Supp. 1073, 1077 (D.Minn.1989). The Kaisers appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit challenging federal court subject matter jurisdiction and the granting of the motions for summary judgment. The court of appeals affirmed the district court on the question of subject matter jurisdiction but certified to this court the following questions: ¹

(1) Whether the two-year statute of limitations, Minn.Stat.Ann. § 541.07(1), or the six-year statute of limitations, id. § 541.05, applies to actions alleging negligence on the part of blood banks in the screening of blood or blood products?

(2) If the two-year statute of limitations applies to negligence actions against blood banks, is the running of the statutory period in cases alleging HIV-infection tolled by application of the special discovery exception for asbestos-related wrongful death actions adopted in DeCosse v. Armstrong Cork Co. ² ?

I.

The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants on the following undisputed facts which supply the context within which we answer the certified questions:

Patty Kaiser had a tubal ligation at Fairview Southdale Hospital in Minneapolis on November 7, 1984. The next day, she received two units of packed red blood cells. She was discharged from the hospital on November 12 and received no further medical treatment relating to the surgery.

The blood components used in the transfusion were collected by the St. Paul Region of the American National Red Cross. The blood given to Patty Kaiser had been donated by two donors, one of whom it was later learned was infected with HIV, the virus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The two units of blood were sent by Red Cross to Memorial under terms of a reciprocal blood-sharing agreement. Memorial stored the blood until it was sold to Fairview Southdale Hospital for Patty Kaiser's transfusion.

In the spring of 1987, after viewing a television program about AIDS, Patty Kaiser had her blood tested for HIV. On April 7, 1987, she learned that her blood had tested positive. She and her husband filed this action on September 1, 1988.

The Director of Blood Services for the St. Paul Region of Red Cross Blood Services is a licensed physician certified in clinical pathology and the subspecialty of blood banking. The St. Paul Region Red Cross employs five other licensed physicians, one of whom is responsible for advising other doctors about transfusions for particular patients. The St. Paul Region also employs nurses and other medical personnel, all of whom are supervised by physicians.

Memorial is licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), registered with the Center for Disease Control and the Health Care Finance Administration, and accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. Memorial's director is a licensed physician certified in clinical pathology and blood banking. He establishes scientific and medical policies for Memorial that conform with federal regulations and blood banking industry guidelines. Memorial also employs registered nurses and laboratory technologists.

During 1984, Red Cross personnel regularly screened donors for HIV risk factors and tested collected blood for various factors pursuant to its license from the FDA. When Memorial received blood from Red Cross, its laboratory technologists re-tested the blood for blood group and Rh type, but apparently not for other factors, before distributing the blood to hospitals for transfusions.

II.

The statute of limitations for most negligence actions in Minnesota is six years. Minn.Stat. § 541.05. However, certain kinds of actions against certain defendants must be commenced within a shorter period of time. Minn.Stat. § 541.07 provides, in relevant part:

[T]he following actions shall be commenced within two years:

(1) * * * [A]ll actions against physicians, surgeons, dentists, other health care professionals as defined in section 145.61, and veterinarians as defined in chapter 156, hospitals, [and] sanitariums, for malpractice, error, mistake or failure to cure, whether based on contract or tort * * *.

Id.

To determine which statute controls, the court must determine both whether the defendant is included in those listed in the two-year statute and whether the action is for "malpractice, error, mistake, or failure to cure." The Kaisers argue that the six-year statute applies because this is a common-law negligence action, not malpractice, and because blood banks are not included as protected defendants in the two-year statute. The blood banks argue that the Kaisers' complaint alleges medical malpractice. They also assert that the two-year statute applies to them as defendants in two ways: directly because blood banks are "other health care professionals" and vicariously for the medical malpractice of their physician employees.

The reference to "other health care professionals as defined in section 145.61" was added to the statute in a 1982 amendment, Act of Mar. 22, 1982, ch. 546 § 2, 1982 Minn.Laws 1049, but section 145.61 fails to expressly define "other health care professionals." The meaning of that phrase must be derived from the following definitions that are found in section 145.61:

Subd. 2. Professional. "Professional" means a person licensed or registered to practice a healing art under chapter 147 [physician, surgeon, or osteopath], or 148 [chiropractor, registered nurse, licensed practical nurse, midwife, optometrist, physical therapist, and psychologist], to practice dentistry under chapter 150A, to practice as a pharmacist under chapter 151, or to practice podiatry under chapter 153.

Subd. 3. "Professional service" means service rendered by a professional of the type such professional is licensed to perform.

Subd. 4. "Health care" means professional services rendered by a professional or an employee of a professional and services furnished by a hospital, sanitarium, nursing home or other institution for the hospitalization or care of human beings.

Minn.Stat. § 145.61 (1990).

Legislative history indicates that the 1982 amendment was proposed and passed to provide to "other health care professionals" the same two-year exposure to malpractice liability afforded physicians, surgeons, dentists, hospitals, and sanitariums prior to the amendment. Previously, the two-year statute of limitations applied only to malpractice actions against the listed categories of defendant, but the six-year statute applied to all other health care workers, even if they were involved in the same alleged acts of malpractice with a physician or surgeon. Thus, prior to the 1982 amendment, five years after a negligent surgery, a victim of a negligent surgery could sue the operating room nurse but not the surgeon. This disparity struck the legislature as unfair and the amendment was passed to correct this apparent inequity. ³ It is significant, however, that the legislature did not extend coverage to all "health care professionals" generically, but only to those specifically listed in the amended statute.

Because blood banks are not expressly mentioned as a class of defendant governed by the two-year limitation in Minn.Stat. § 541.07(1), they are protected as corporate entities only if they are a necessary subset of any of the classes of defendants that are specified. The category of "hospitals and sanitariums" is the only one that refers to corporate entities as opposed to natural persons. The specification of two specific institutional de...