St. John's Regional Health Center, Inc. v. Windler

• Decision Date: 03 February 1993
• Docket Number: No. 18100,18100
• Citation: 847 S.W.2d 168
• Parties: ST. JOHN'S REGIONAL HEALTH CENTER, INC., Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Kelly WINDLER, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 168

847 S.W.2d 168

ST. JOHN'S REGIONAL HEALTH CENTER, INC., Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Kelly WINDLER, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 18100.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Southern District,

Division One.

Feb. 3, 1993.

Rob J. Aiken, Bacon, Lewis & Aiken, Springfield, for defendant-appellant.

Frank M. Evans, III, Ed L. Payton, Miller & Sanford, P.C., Springfield, for plaintiff-respondent.

SHRUM, Judge.

On April 7, 1992, the trial court dismissed the defendant Kelly Windler's counterclaim against the plaintiff, St. John's Regional Health Center, Inc. The court found that Windler's counterclaim--a counterclaim charging St. John's with false imprisonment of Windler--was barred because of her failure to file a health care affidavit mandated by § 538.225.1, RSMo 1986. ¹ As a premise to its ruling the trial court said, "St. John's was acting only in its capacity as a health care provider...." Windler appeals from the judgment of dismissal. ²

The issue in this case is whether, as a matter of law, the health care affidavit described in § 538.225.1, RSMo 1986, has to be filed in a false imprisonment case brought against a hospital, when, at the time of the incident, the hospital was acting in its capacity as a health care provider. We conclude that under the circumstances shown by this record, the filing of an affidavit was mandatory. We affirm.

FACTS

On July 29, 1991, St. John's sued Windler, claiming that she owed $513.78 for medical and hospital care rendered to her on November 15 and 16, 1990. Windler filed an answer in which she admitted that St. John's was a corporation but denied all other allegations. By a contemporaneously filed counterclaim Windler charged that for two days, St. John's, acting through its employees, detained her against her will, kept her imprisoned, and restrained her of her liberty, all by means of threats and force; that this incident occurred in a building occupied by St. John's in which it operated a psychiatric hospital; and that by reason of such imprisonment she was humiliated and embarrassed, her reputation was damaged, her nerves were shocked, she suffered severe emotional upset, and she was thereby damaged in the amount of $15,000. St. John's moved for the dismissal of Windler's counterclaim, citing her failure to file the § 538.225 affidavit.

Initially, the trial court ruled it would take the motion with the case. Later, relying on Jacobs v. Wolff, 829 S.W.2d 470 (Mo.App.1992), St. John's asked the trial court to reconsider its earlier action regarding the motion to dismiss. Windler opposed such request, arguing in a written memorandum filed with the trial court that reliance on Jacobs by St. John's was misplaced. In her memorandum she represented to the trial court that "[t]he evidence will show that [Windler] was unlawfully restrained by [St. John's] under threat of Sec. 632.305 RSMo. The evidence will further show that at no time did [St. John's] seek to comply with the requirements of Sec. 632.305 RSMo. and as such involuntarily restrained plaintiff without voluntary consent." ³

The trial court ruled that Jacobs did control and dismissed Windler's counterclaim. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION AND DECISION

Implicit in the wording of her counterclaim and in her written argument to the trial court is a recognition by Windler that St. John's was acting in its capacity as a health care provider when the alleged incident of unlawful imprisonment occurred. Neither before the trial court nor to this court does she argue otherwise. ⁴ Rather, she challenges the trial court's finding that Jacobs governs. In doing so she characterizes the dismissed counts in Jacobs as being clearly founded on negligence principles, and, hence, "were of the nature [that § 538.225.1] was intended to cover, i.e. allegations against a physician for personal injury as a result of the negligence of a physician specifically the breach of duty to provide such care as a reasonably prudent and careful health care provider would have provided under similar circumstances." She argues that she need not file the § 538.225.1 affidavit because her claim is distinguishable from those in Jacobs in that her counterclaim charges false imprisonment, an intentional tort. Continuing, Windler asserts that it is not an element of her case that she show a duty and a breach of the standard of care that a reasonably prudent and careful health care provider would have provided under similar circumstances, but, instead, all she needs to prove is that St. John's intentionally restrained her against her will.

We conclude that the foregoing argument flows from a misreading of Jacobs. In Jacobs plaintiff filed a multiple count petition naming a medical doctor and a registered nurse as defendants. In Counts I-IV, plaintiff sought damages from the physician on theories of tortious interference with contract, negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and prima facie tort. In Count IX, the plaintiff sought damages from the nurse on a negligence theory. In Count V plaintiff sought injunctive relief against the physician. All counts were dismissed by the trial court because of plaintiff's failure to file the § 538.225.1 affidavit. The Eastern District affirmed the dismissal of Counts I-IV and IX, the damage counts, saying:

The legal question is whether the gravamen of plaintiff's claims for damages consists of claims against Dr. Wolff and nurse Unser in their capacity as health care providers. Given the relationship of the parties and the true claim for damages relates to wrongful acts of a health care provider, we find § 538.225 RSMo 1986 applies regardless of the characterization of the claims by plaintiff.

Jacobs, 829 S.W.2d at 472. ⁵ The court then examined the various allegations of plaintiff's petition and concluded:

The gravamen of all plaintiff's complaints, for which he seeks damages against Dr. Wolff and nurse Unser, are related to breaches of duty in rendering rehabilitative care. Plaintiff had no other relationship with Dr. Wolff or nurse Unser except for rehabilitation under the prescription of his cardiologist. Defendants' activities at the rehabilitative center were related only to providing services to persons, including plaintiff, who required a form of health care.... On these facts § 538.225 applies.

829 S.W.2d at 473.

Under Jacobs, the elements of the cause of action do not fix conclusively whether the § 538.225.1 affidavit is required. ⁶ Instead, Jacobs teaches, if a court determines that the relationship of the parties is that of health care provider and recipient and that the "true claim" relates only to the provision of health care services, then the health care affidavit is mandatory.

Here, the trial court made the determination that the health care relationship existed and Windler does not challenge that finding. ⁷ Despite her characterization of her claim as false imprisonment, we conclude her "true claim" requires the affidavit, because the basis for the alleged false imprisonment was the incorrect--or totally absent--medical determination that she needed to be confined. ⁸

Windler makes the additional argument that the § 538.225 affidavit requirement does not apply because her claim is not one for damages for personal injury; rather, it is a claim for damages for injury to her personal rights. See, e.g., Signorino v. National Super Markets, 782 S.W.2d 100, 104 (Mo.App.1989) (in assessing actual or general damages for false arrest a jury can properly consider such things as embarrassment, disgrace, humiliation, injury to plaintiff's feelings or reputation, and mental suffering); see also Nelson v. R.H. Macy & Co., 434 S.W.2d 767, 774-75 (Mo.App.1968). As we interpret Windler's position, she would have us view the term "personal injury" in § 538.225.1 in a narrow sense, as a hurt or damage to her person, such as a cut or bruise or broken limb, as distinguished from an injury to her reputation, feelings, or similar "personal rights." See Black's Law Dictionary 786 (6th ed.1990). We reject Windler's view for the reasons which follow.

The term "personal injury" is chiefly used in its narrow sense in negligence actions and in worker's compensation cases. Black's Law Dictionary 786 (6th ed.1990). The term also is used in a much wider sense (usually in statutes) to include any injury which is an invasion of personal rights, and, in this sense, may include such injuries to the person as libel or slander, criminal conversation, malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, and mental suffering. Id. See also Gray v. Wallace, 319 S.W.2d 582, 583-85[2, 3] (Mo.1958); 43A C.J.S. Injury at 769 (1978).

In Gray, our supreme court recognized that the gist of an action for false imprisonment is injury to one's personal rights as distinguished from an injury to the person. 319 S.W.2d at 585. When the Gray court examined the history of §§ 537.010-537.030, RSMo 1949 (statutes concerning abatement or survival of actions for personal injuries after death), it determined that the legislature intended that the term "personal injuries" be viewed "in its broadest and most comprehensive sense" and that the legislature intended that the term include "all actions for injuries to the person whether to the person's rights [as in a false imprisonment case] or to his body." 319 S.W.2d at 584.

Viewing Chapter 538 in the light of what was said in Gray convinces us that Windler's argument has no merit. In Chapter 538 the legislature authorized a trier of fact to award "non-economic damages" in an amount not to exceed $350,000 "[i]n any action against a health care provider for damages for personal injury or death arising out of the rendering of or the failure to render health care services." §§ 538.210-538.215 RSMo 1986. "Non-economic damages" are defined as "damages arising from nonpecuniary harm including, without limitation, pain, suffering, mental anguish, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of...