Scaccia v. Kennedy
| Decision Date | 30 March 2023 |
| Docket Number | C093627 |
| Parties | BRIAN SCACCIA, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. DANIEL KENNEDY et al., Defendants and Respondents |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Plaintiff Brian Scaccia (Plaintiff) representing himself, appeals from (1) summary judgment granted in favor of defendants Daniel Kennedy, M.D. (Dr. Kennedy) and Sutter Davis Hospital (Sutter) (collectively Defendants), and (2) "all underlying rulings" in this case. Plaintiff's claims against Defendants arise out of care and treatment they provided to his mother, Anne Ringkamp, who died at Sutter in November 2013 following a two-week hospitalization. We affirm.
An appellant's opening brief must contain "a summary of the significant facts" relevant to the issues raised in the appeal. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(2)(C).) A summary is particularly important in a case like this, where both the judgment and all underlying rulings are challenged on appeal, and where the record is over 20,000 pages. Without a complete and cohesive summary, we do not know what it is we are being asked to review. The entirety of Plaintiff's summary of significant facts is as follows:
As just noted, the record is over 20,000 pages. It spans 28 volumes. The index alone is over 130 pages. With some help from Defendants' briefing, we have attempted to briefly summarize what appear to be the most relevant facts, in order to give an overview of the proceedings in the trial court. Additional facts will be discussed in the relevant discussion sections, below.
This case begins with the filing of the first amended complaint on January 9, 2015.[1] It contains 251 paragraphs of factual allegations, most of which have nothing to do with Dr. Kennedy or Sutter. Instead, most of the allegations deal solely with Plaintiff, his brother John, and their mother, Anne.[2] According to those allegations, Anne lived in Ohio from 1997 to 2013. She lived next door to John, in a house she rented from him. The complaint contains a litany of accusations against John, including that he hated his mother, he tricked her into signing her penultimate will, he stole or converted large sums of money from her, and he extorted money from Plaintiff.
The complaint continues that at some point in time, Anne became unable to care for herself and was dependent on John to ensure she had food, housing, and medical care. By 2013, she was food deprived and weighed only 80 pounds. Her house was so dirty that healthcare workers refused to sit down when they visited her. John withheld medicine from her. Her health declined. She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In July 2013, a social worker reported Anne's situation to Ohio Adult Protective Services because she believed Anne was not getting sufficient food, medical care, or assistance with activities of daily living.
In August 2013, Plaintiff moved Anne to California to live with him. The move was contentious. Plaintiff accused John of abusing Anne, and John accused Plaintiff of taking Anne against her will and of undue influence. Police were called more than once.
By early August 2013, Anne and Plaintiff were living in California. Anne suffered from health problems that Plaintiff suspected were caused by John's abuse. He scheduled visits to doctors in hopes of reversing her decline.
On September 26, 2013, Plaintiff took Anne to the Sutter emergency room because she appeared to have suffered a stroke and was having difficulty breathing. A scan of Anne's lungs revealed a liver tumor. Dr. Kennedy, one of Anne's treating physicians at Sutter, stated it was probably caused by metastatic cancer elsewhere in the body and that Anne was dying of cancer, but he refused to do tests to determine if she actually had cancer. Dr. Kennedy wanted to discontinue Anne's appetite stimulant and would not take measures to help her gain weight because he believed that increased food consumption would feed the tumor and hasten her death. He stated her quality of life had deteriorated so much that it was not worth prolonging. Plaintiff disagreed and stated it was premature to treat Anne as if she had terminal cancer, and that her poor health was likely the result of her awful living conditions in Ohio. After Anne was discharged from the hospital, she told Plaintiff she wanted aggressive treatment.
On November 10, 2013, Anne returned to Sutter with severe respiratory distress. Within days, she had contracted an antibiotic-resistant infection, and was placed on a ventilator. Dr. Kennedy claimed Anne was in pain and he sought Plaintiff's permission to remove Anne from the ventilator. Plaintiff refused. Plaintiff told Dr. Kennedy about John's abuse and neglect of Anne. He also told Dr. Kennedy that Anne had an advanced health care directive (AHCD) naming him as her agent and instructing doctors not to contact John if she were seriously ill or dying. Dr. Kennedy did not attempt to obtain a copy of Anne's AHCD and instead contacted John and let him make decisions about Anne's care and treatment. John and Dr. Kennedy made plans to "euthanize" Anne. Anne began bleeding from her lungs, and a lab test suggested "foul play" because it found "plant matter" in her lungs. Plaintiff believes someone intentionally stuck a branch down Anne's ventilator tube and put plant matter into her lungs "to wound her, perhaps mortally." With John's approval, the ventilator was removed on November 23, and Anne died that day.
After Anne's death, John filed a lawsuit in Ohio claiming that he was Anne's sole heir, and that Plaintiff had abused her, kidnapped her, stolen money from her, and caused her tumor and her death. In April 2014, John "usurped Anne's will and obtained a default judgment . . . against" Plaintiff.
Based on these allegations, Plaintiff sued John, Dr. Kennedy and Sutter, both on his own behalf and on behalf of Anne.[3] The complaint contains 22 causes of action, seven of which are asserted against Dr. Kennedy and/or Sutter: (1) false light; (2) defamation; (3) fraud; (4) medical negligence; (5) wrongful death; (6) "decisions law" (based on Defendants' alleged failure to follow Anne's wishes as stated in her AHCD); and (7) breach of confidentiality.[4] As asserted on behalf of Anne, these causes of action are survival causes of action (i.e., causes of action that existed while a person was alive and that survive the person's death), which may only be commenced "by the decedent's personal representative or, if none, by the decedent's successor in interest." (Code Civ. Proc., § 377.30.)[5]
On March 16, 2015, Sutter filed a demurrer to the complaint arguing the cause of action for false light was uncertain, and the remaining causes of action failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against it. Sutter also argued Plaintiff lacked standing to bring the survival causes of action because he did not allege he was Anne's personal representative or successor in interest. Plaintiff responded by asking for a continuance in order to perfect his right to bring claims on Anne's behalf and to conduct discovery to defend against the demurrer. The trial court denied Plaintiff's request for a continuance. On April 29, 2015, the trial court overruled the demurrer as to the wrongful death cause of action, and sustained it with leave to amend as to all other causes of action, finding (1) the complaint failed to allege Plaintiff had been appointed as Anne's personal representative, (2) the cause of action for false light failed to allege what information Sutter publicized that showed plaintiff(s) in a false light, and (3) the complaint failed to state facts sufficient to constitute the other causes of action. A subsequent order stated the amended complaint had to be filed by August 6, 2015.
In the meantime, on June 8, 2015, Dr. Kennedy filed a demurrer that largely repeated Sutter's arguments. Once again, Plaintiff sought a continuance, and, once again, the trial court denied the request. On August 13, 2015, the trial court overruled the demurrer as to the wrongful death cause of action, and sustained it with leave to amend as to all other causes of action for the same reasons it gave when ruling on Sutter's demurrer. The amendment had to be filed within 10 days. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1320(g).)
Plaintiff failed to file an amended complaint within the time allowed and on October 9, 2015, Dr. Kennedy filed a motion to dismiss all claims but the wrongful death claim, and Sutter joined in that motion. The motion was based on section 581, which provides, "The court may dismiss the complaint as to [a] defendant when: [¶] . . . [¶] (2) . . . after a demurrer to the complaint is sustained with leave to amend, the plaintiff fails to amend it within the time allowed." (§ 581, subd. (f)(2).) The trial court granted the...
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