Kirlin v. Monaster

• Citation: 984 N.W.2d 412
• Decision Date: 06 January 2023
• Docket Number: 22-0405
• Parties: Jahn Patric KIRLIN and Sara Louise Kirlin, Appellants, v. Barclay A. MONASTER, Christian William Jones, and Physicians Clinic, Inc. d/b/a Methodist Physicians Clinic–Council Bluffs, Appellees.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

984 N.W.2d 412

Jahn Patric KIRLIN and Sara Louise Kirlin, Appellants,

v.Barclay A. MONASTER, Christian William Jones, and Physicians Clinic, Inc. d/b/a Methodist Physicians Clinic–Council Bluffs, Appellees.

No. 22-0405

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Submitted November 16, 2022

Filed January 6, 2023

Kelly N. Wyman (argued), Council Bluffs, and Dean T. Jennings, Council Bluffs, for appellants.

Bryony J. Whitaker (argued), Frederick T. Harris, and Agnieszka M. Gaertner (until withdrawal) of Lamson Dugan & Murray LLP, West Des Moines, for appellee Barclay A. Monaster.

Robert A. Mooney (argued) and Betsy Seeba-Walters of Mooney, Lenaghan, Westberg Dorn, L.L.C., Omaha, Nebraska, for appellees Christian William Jones and Physicians Clinic, Inc. d/b/a Methodist Physicians Clinic–Council Bluffs.

Oxley, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which all participating justices joined. Christensen, C.J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

OXLEY, Justice.

This case raises questions about the interplay between the plaintiffs’ right to voluntarily dismiss their own petition under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.943 and the requirement for a plaintiff in a medical malpractice action to provide a certificate of merit affidavit signed by a qualified expert witness within sixty days of the defendant's answer or face dismissal with prejudice under Iowa Code section 147.140(6) (2021). The plaintiffs timely filed a certificate of merit affidavit in their medical malpractice case but then voluntarily dismissed the case after the defendants challenged the qualifications of the expert witness who signed the affidavit. The plaintiffs then refiled their case and provided a certificate of merit affidavit signed by a different expert witness. The defendants argued the plaintiffs were bound by the purportedly deficient certificate of merit from the first case, and the district court agreed, granting summary judgment to the defendants in the second case.

We addressed related issues in another opinion filed today, Ronnfeldt v. Shelby County Chris A. Myrtue Memorial Hospital , 984 N.W.2d 418 (Iowa 2023), where we reaffirmed a plaintiff's right to voluntarily dismiss her medical malpractice case without prejudice under rule 1.943, even in the face of a pending motion seeking dismissal with prejudice under section 147.140(6). The question we must now answer is whether a plaintiff who files a noncompliant certificate of merit and then voluntarily dismisses the case is stuck with the certificate filed in the first case when bringing a second action. For the reasons stated below and in Ronnfeldt , we answer that question in the negative.

I. Factual and Procedural History.

In the spring of 2019, Jahn Kirlin sought medical treatment for persistent pain in his head and neck. Dr. Christian Jones, of the Methodist Physicians Clinic–Council Bluffs, recommended Jahn take medications to manage his pain over the short-term and suggested an MRI could be necessary if his symptoms did not improve. Jahn's symptoms did not improve, and when he returned to receive further treatment, he was placed in Dr. Barclay Monaster's care. Dr. Monaster did not order an MRI, however, recommending instead that Jahn continue managing his pain as before. Jahn experienced a stroke soon after that visit.

On September 11, 2020, Jahn and his wife Sara (the Kirlins) filed their first petition against Dr. Jones, Dr. Monaster, and Methodist Physicians Clinic (the Defendants)¹ alleging negligence and seeking compensation for Jahn's injuries and Sara's loss of consortium. The Kirlins timely filed a section 147.140 certificate of merit affidavit on October 2, signed by Dr. David Segal, a board-certified neurosurgeon.² The Defendants challenged the certificate on the basis that Dr. Monaster is a family physician and Dr. Segal was not board-certified in family medicine. See Iowa Code §§ 147.139(1) (requiring the affiant to be "licensed to practice in the same or a substantially similar field as the defendant"), .139(3) ("If the defendant is board-certified in a specialty, the [affiant must be] certified in the same or a substantially similar specialty ...."), .140(1)(a ) (requiring that the expert affiant "meet the qualifying standards of section 147.139"). Before the district court could issue a ruling on those motions, however, the Kirlins voluntarily dismissed their petition without prejudice under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.943.

The Kirlins refiled their petition on April 14, 2021, and provided a new certificate of merit signed by Dr. Brian Smith—board-certified in family medicine—who opined that each defendant in the second case breached the standard of care. The Defendants moved to dismiss the second case on the basis that the certificate of merit signed by Dr. Segal from the first case was deficient. The district court denied the Defendants’ motions to dismiss because, at the pleadings stage, it could not consider facts outside the Kirlins’ petition, including Dr. Segal's certificate of merit from the first case. The Defendants then filed answers and moved for summary judgment on the same bases as alleged in their motions to dismiss, again relying on their challenge to Dr. Segal's certificate of merit. The Defendants did not challenge whether Dr. Smith's certificate of merit affidavits complied with section 147.140. Their claim was limited to whether the certificate of merit affidavit the Kirlins filed in the first case entitled them to dismissal of the second case.

Now having the ability to consider filings outside of the petition, the district court granted the Defendants’ motions for summary judgment. The district court first determined that it could consider the issue of statutory compliance from the first case by extending our holding in Darrah v. Des Moines General Hospital , 436 N.W.2d 53 (Iowa 1989), and characterizing the dismissal requirement in section 147.140 as a sanction. The district court took "the same stance with respect to enforcing sanctions after a voluntary dismissal [as Darrah ] because without the authority to impose sanction[s], the rule effectively loses the teeth originally intended by the ‘harsh consequence’ of [ section 147.140 ], the legislative intent as outlined in McHugh v. Smith , 966 N.W.2d 285 (Iowa Ct. App. 2021)." After determining that the Kirlins’ first certificate of merit did not substantially comply with section 147.140, the district court noted it would have been required to "dismiss the Plaintiffs[’] claims with prejudice in the previous case had there been the procedure to address the enforcement of the sanction. Unfortunately, there is no procedure yet written that affords the courts the ability to address an unsettled motion in order to determine the defendants’ rights without resorting to a successive case." The district court then granted the Defendants’ motions for summary judgment, dismissing the second case based on the deficient certificate of merit filed in the first case.

The Kirlins appealed. We retained the appeal to clarify the interplay between section 147.140 and rule 1.943.

II. Standard of Review.

We review summary judgment motions for correction of errors at law. Lennette v. State , 975 N.W.2d 380, 388 (Iowa 2022). Summary judgment is proper only if the record reflects "no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.981(3). Because this appeal turns on the district court's application of section 147.140, "summary judgment is the proper vehicle to test the validity of [the] claim ... [and] we need only decide whether the district court properly applied the law." Hill v. State, Dep't of Hum. Servs. , 493 N.W.2d 803, 804–05 (Iowa 1992) (citation omitted); see also Johnson v. Associated Milk Producers, Inc. , 886 N.W.2d 384, 389 (Iowa 2016) ("Summary judgment is proper if the only issue is the legal consequences flowing from undisputed facts." (quoting Peak v. Adams , 799 N.W.2d 535, 542 (Iowa 2011) )).

III. Analysis.

Today's related case, Ronnfeldt , 984 N.W.2d 418, resolves this appeal. There, we held that a plaintiff's voluntary dismissal under rule 1.943 mooted the defendants’ pending motion to dismiss premised on noncompliance with section 147.140 ’s certificate of merit requirements, and the plaintiff's first dismissal was without prejudice as provided by rule 1.943. Id. at 429. We concluded that rule 1.943 and section 147.140 are not irreconcilably conflicting for two reasons. Id. at 422–28. First, the plain text of those provisions does not put them at odds— rule 1.943 says nothing about certificates of merit, and section 147.140 says nothing about voluntary dismissals. Id. at 422–26. Second, section 147.140 is not self-executing and can only apply when there is a case over which it can govern, which is lost once the plaintiff voluntarily dismisses her action under rule 1.943, which is self-executing. Id. at 426–28. Once the case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice, the section 147.140 motion was mooted as there was nothing left to rule on when the district court granted the defendants’ motion to reconsider their motion to dismiss. Id. at 428–29 (concluding that "the district court lacked jurisdiction to posthumously resurrect and rule on" the defendants’ motion to dismiss after the case was voluntarily dismissed).

If a court in the same case cannot rule on the validity of a section 147.140 motion after a voluntary dismissal, it is hard to imagine how a later court could do so in a second case. The district court here was astute in recognizing that "there is no procedure yet written that affords the courts the ability to address an unsettled motion" under section 147.140 after a voluntary dismissal. That is because none was written into the statute. Unless, and until, the general assembly expressly provides that rule 1.943 does not apply when a motion is pending under section 147.140, we continue to apply our...