Reed v. St. Charles General Hosp.
| Decision Date | 27 March 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 2001-C-1148.,2001-C-1148. |
| Citation | 815 So.2d 319 |
| Parties | Joe REED, et al. v. ST. CHARLES GENERAL HOSPITAL. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Stephen M. Pizzo, Blue Williams, L.L.P., Metairie, LA, for St. Charles General Hospital. Russ M. Herman, Herman, Herman, Katz & Cotlar, L.L.P., and Warren A. Goldstein, Warren A. Goldstein, A P.L.C., New Orleans, LA, for Plaintiffs/Respondents.
(Court composed of Judge JOAN BERNARD ARMSTRONG, Judge CHARLES R. JONES, Judge PATRICIA RIVET MURRAY, Judge DENNIS R. BAGNERIS, SR., and Judge TERRI F. LOVE).
Joe and Dorothy Reed filed a petition for damages alleging that Mr. Reed contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion that he received while a patient in St. Charles General Hospital on March 12, 1985. Joe Reed discovered that he was infected on September 29, 1987, and Dorothy Reed discovered that she was infected on December 11, 1987. Joe Reed died on November 12, 1988, and Dorothy Reed died on May 1, 1995. Their children, Clyde Day and Sunny Day Collins continue the Reed claims.
St. Charles General Hospital first raised the issue of prescription based on La. R.S. 9:5628 in July 1990. The district court granted the exception and dismissed plaintiffs' suit. The Reeds appealed to this Court, but the merits were not reached. The issue was found to be premature because the Reeds had challenged the constitutionality of La. R.S. 9:5628. This Court then vacated the district court's ruling and remanded the case for a Sibley1 hearing on the constitutionality issue. This Court did note that the exception could be re-urged.
After St. Charles General Hospital filed its first exception of prescription, the Reeds amended their petition nine times to allege additional claims. In July 1992, the Reeds added a consumer protection claim under the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act. The Reeds in an amended petition also alleged separate independent claims of medical malpractice against the Blood Center of Southeast Louisiana, Pathology Laboratory, Dr. Robert E. Treuting, M.D., Dr. M.G. Simpson, M.D., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, and the Attorney General of Louisiana.
Ten years after this Court remanded the case for a Sibley hearing on the constitutionality of La. R.S. 9:5628, the Reeds had not pursued their claim. St. Charles General Hospital then re-filed the Exception of Prescription and Peremption in the instant case.
Six months after St. Charles General Hospital re-filed its exception, the Reeds enrolled additional counsel of record and raised two new arguments. The Reeds argued that their strict liability claims were not covered by the prescriptive period of La. R.S. 9:5628, and that any claims by Dorothy Reed were not covered by the statute because she was not a patient of St. Charles General Hospital.
The district court took the matter under advisement, and denied the exception. The district court in it's Reasons for Judgment agreed with the Reeds and stated that Dorothy Reed's claim was not subject to the prescriptive periods of La. R.S. 9:5628 because she had not been a patient of St. Charles General Hospital. The district court also stated that at the time of his blood transfusion Joe Reed could have brought a strict liability claim under the then applicable La. R.S. 9:2797; therefore, La. R.S. 9:5628 did not apply. The district court then applied the general rules of prescription, and found that the Reeds' petition was timely filed within one year of the discovery of the alleged malpractice. The Relator, St. Charles General Hospital, timely seeks review of the judgment by the district court denying its Exception of Prescription rendered on April 30, 2001.
St. Charles General Hospital avers that the district court erred as a matter of law in failing to dismiss the Reeds' claim for damages because it had prescribed. We choose to address the issue of prescription with respect to the Respondents individually.
The district court found that at the time of the blood transfusion, Mr. Reed was entitled to proceed in strict liability under the applicable version of La. R.S. 9:2797 and therefore his claim had not prescribed. We agree.
Mr. Reed's blood transfusion occurred on March 12, 1985. Prior to 1990, La. R.S. 9:2797 read as follows:
Strict liability of any kind without negligence shall not be applicable to physicians, dentists, hospitals, hospital blood banks, or nonprofit community blood banks in the screening, processing, transfusion, or medical use of human blood and blood components of any kind and the transplantation or medical use of any kind of human organ, human tissue, or approved animal tissue which results in transmission of viral diseases or any infectious agent undetectable by appropriate medical and scientific laboratory tests. (emphasis added)
In 1982, strict liability claims for blood transfusions were not abolished by statute, but were restricted to cases where viral diseases and infectious agents were "detectable" by appropriate medical and scientific tests. It was not until 1990 that strict liability for blood transfusions was statutorily abolished. Joe Reed received his transfusion in 1985. A patient's action in strict products liability arising out of a defective blood transfusion, which was received before enactment of the blood shield statutes, was not governed by the statute establishing the three-year prescriptive period for medical malpractice claims, but rather general tort prescriptive periods. Williams v. Jackson Parish Hospital, XXXX-XXXX (La.10/16/01), 798 So.2d 921. However, there remains a factual question to be addressed by the district court as to whether, as of the date of Mr. Reed's transfusion, HIV could be detected by appropriate medical or scientific laboratory tests before a determination can be made with respect to prescription of Mr. Reed's claim.
Joe Reed received his blood transfusion on March 12, 1985, and was diagnosed with AIDS on September 29, 1987. The Reeds filed their petition for damages on September 14, 1988. Mr. Reed filed his claim within a year of discovering that he had contracted AIDS potentially as a result of the blood transfusion that he received from St. Charles General. Thus, without a determination as to the medical and scientific detectability of HIV, we cannot ascertain whether Mr. Reed's claim has prescribed under La. R.S. 9:5628.
The district court found that La. R.S. 9:5628 did not apply to Dorothy Reed's claim because she was never a patient of St. Charles General Hospital. We agree.
La. R.S. 40:1299.41(A)(8) defines "malpractice" as:
[A]ny unintentional tort or any breach of contract based on health care or professional services rendered, or which should have been rendered, by a health care provider, to a patient, including failure to render services timely and the handling of a patient, including loading and unloading of a patient, and also includes all legal responsibility of a health care provider arising from defects in blood, tissue, transplants, drugs, medicines, or from defects in or failures or prosthetic devices, implanted in or used on or in the person of a patient. (emphasis added)
Further La. R.S. 40:1299.41(A)(3) defines "patient" as "a natural person who receives or should have received health care from a licensed health care provider, under a contract, express or implied".
Based on the definitions provided under La. R.S. 40:1299.41, we find that Mrs. Reed does not fall within the parameters of the definition of "patient". She did not receive health care from St. Charles General. Dorothy Reed was injured, and later died as a result of "patient care" extended to her husband, and not direct healthcare afforded to her. Notwithstanding the date of filing, Mrs. Reed's claim would not fall under the medical malpractice laws since she was never a patient of St. Charles General. We cannot justify holding a person accountable for potential illness when they had not been ill, had no direct interaction with the health care provider and had no inclination that they may be ill because of their interaction with a loved one who had been given health care. Therefore, the prescriptive period for delictual actions applies to Mrs. Reed's claim.
According to La. C.C. art. 3492, delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of one year. Since we have no date demonstrating when she actually...
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