Toomer v. Metro Ambulance Servs., Inc.
| Decision Date | 24 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | A22A0160 |
| Citation | 364 Ga.App. 469,875 S.E.2d 479 |
| Parties | Mildred TOOMER, in Her Capacity as Administrator of the Estate of Milton McBride v. METRO AMBULANCE SERVICES, INC. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Thomas F. Cuffie, Atlanta, Magua Bianca Benson, for Appellant.
Daniel Stephen Wolcott, Arthur James Park, Atlanta, Sarah Moore-Ragusin Mackimm, Cartersville, Caitlin Louise Amick, for Appellee.
Milton McBride was injured when two employees of an ambulance company dropped him from a stretcher. He died more than a year later. The administrator of his estate, Mildred Toomer, sued the company and the two employees to recover for his injuries, just inside the statutory limitation period for personal-injury actions. But later, during discovery, Toomer learned that McBride's injuries from the stretcher incident caused his death, so she amended her complaint to add a wrongful-death claim. The trial court dismissed the wrongful-death claim as untimely.
We reverse. The new claim was timely because it related back to the original complaint under OCGA § 9-11-15 (c). The new claim arose out of the same core of operative facts that gave rise to Toomer's initial negligence claims: McBride being dropped from the stretcher and sustaining serious injuries. The relation-back inquiry here is not affected by the rule that we must "strictly construe" the wrongful-death statute. That rule is not a true "strict construction" rule, but in any event, we are not interpreting that statute. Nor does Miles v. Ashland Chem. Co. , 261 Ga. 726, 727-28, 410 S.E.2d 290 (1991), which rejected a discovery rule for wrongful-death actions, have anything relevant to say about the relation-back question here. Finally, Toomer could properly add the claim because she was acting in the same capacity in filing each claim, and even if that were not so, adding the new claim was proper under the test set out in Morris v. Chewning , 201 Ga. App. 658, 659-60, 411 S.E.2d 891 (1991).
Metro Ambulance Services provides non-emergency medical transport for patients who are non-ambulatory. On April 28, 2016, two Metro employees, Milagros Bracero and Keysha Ford, were taking Milton McBride back to his hospital room from a routine appointment. They were carrying McBride on a stretcher because he is paraplegic. But he had not been properly secured in the stretcher for transport, and he fell off the stretcher onto pavement. McBride sustained multiple injuries in the fall, including a fractured neck and spine.
McBride died on June 26, 2017. A little less than ten months later, on April 10, 2018, the administrator of McBride's estate, Toomer, brought a personal-injury action against Metro seeking damages for medical expenses and pain and suffering. This was just before the two-year statute of limitations for personal-injury actions expired. See OCGA § 9-3-33 ().
During discovery, Toomer consulted with an expert forensic pathologist, Dr. Matthias Okoye. After reviewing the medical records and evidence, Dr. Okoye opined that McBride's death was caused by complications from the neck fractures he suffered as a result of his fall from the stretcher. So on October 21, 2020—three years after McBride's death—Toomer amended her complaint under OCGA § 9-11-15 to add a claim for wrongful death against all of the defendants.
Metro moved to dismiss the wrongful-death claim, contending that it was barred by the statute of limitations. The trial court granted the motion. Toomer argued that the wrongful-death claim related back to the original complaint under OCGA § 9-11-15 (c), but the court reasoned that the wrongful death claim could not relate back to the initial complaint because (1) it did not arise from the same injury alleged in the initial complaint, (2) wrongful-death claims cannot take advantage of the relation-back provision of OCGA § 9-11-15 (c), and (3) Toomer was acting in a different capacity in bringing the personal-injury claim than she was in bringing the wrongful death claim. We granted Toomer's application for interlocutory review of the trial court's order.
When reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to dismiss an amended complaint as untimely, we evaluate "whether the facts provable under the amended complaint arose out of the conduct alleged in the original complaint." Tenet Healthsystem GB, Inc. v. Thomas , 304 Ga. 86, 89, 816 S.E.2d 627 (2018) (citation omitted). This "relation-back issue ... is more analogous to a dismissal on the pleadings" and the proper standard of review is de novo. Id. (citation omitted).
1. A new claim in an amended complaint "relates back to the date of the original pleading" when it "arises out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth or attempted to be set forth in the original pleading." Tenet , 304 Ga. at 90, 816 S.E.2d 627 ; Deering v. Keever , 282 Ga. 161, 163, 646 S.E.2d 262 (2007). ("Under OCGA § 9-11-15, an amendment to a complaint may raise a new cause of action"). The idea is that allowing the amendment even after the limitation period has run does not deprive the defendant of a statute of limitation's protection from stale claims if the initial complaint gave a defendant fair notice of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence giving rise to the amended complaint. Morris v. Chewning , 201 Ga. App. 658, 659-60, 411 S.E.2d 891 (1991). This relation-back provision is "liberally construed in favor of allowing amendments." Deering , 282 Ga. at 163, 646 S.E.2d 262.
The "same conduct, transaction, or occurrence" question "turns on fair notice of the same general fact situation from which the claim arises." Tenet , 304 Ga. at 90-91, 816 S.E.2d 627 (citation omitted; emphasis in original). Put another way, "relation back depends on the existence of a common ‘core of operative facts’ uniting the original and newly asserted claims." Id. at 90, 816 S.E.2d 627 (citation and punctuation omitted). The new claim relates back if the factual allegations in the original complaint and those supporting the new claim in the amended complaint are "close in time, place, and subject matter, and involve events leading up to the same injury, such that there was but a single ‘episode-in-suit.’ " Id. at 91, 816 S.E.2d 627.
Just so here. Toomer's original complaint, filed in her capacity as administrator of McBride's estate, alleged negligence and sought to recover for McBride's "pain and suffering" as well as his medical expenses. As soon as Toomer obtained the opinion from her expert witness that McBride's death was likely caused by his fall from the stretcher, she amended the complaint to add a wrongful-death claim seeking to recover for the "full economic value of [McBride's] life." That claim arises out of the same core of operative facts that gave rise to her initial negligence claims: McBride not being secured properly to the stretcher, falling from the stretcher to the pavement, and sustaining injuries to his neck and spine. Although the amended complaint newly alleges that those injuries (particularly the neck fractures) later led to McBride's death, it alleges the same episode as the root cause. Although the original complaint "did not expressly pray for damages for the full value of the decedent's life ... the original pleading gives fair notice of the general fact situation out of which the claim arises and specifies the conduct of [the defendants] upon which [Toomer] relies." Morris, 201 Ga. App. at 659, 411 S.E.2d 891 (citation and punctuation omitted). This is enough for the wrongful-death claim to relate back to the original complaint under OCGA § 9-11-15 (c). See Tenet , 304 Ga. at 89-91, 816 S.E.2d 627 (); Jensen v. Engler , 317 Ga. App. 879, 883-84 (1) (b), (2), 733 S.E.2d 52 (2012) (amended complaint against surgeon, adding professional negligence and battery claims, related back, for limitations purposes, to original timely complaint for ordinary negligence, when all claims arose from patient's gallbladder surgery
, follow-up, and discharge).
2. The trial court declined to allow the new wrongful-death claim to relate back because "[t]he wrongful death statute of limitation is construed narrowly," and the court saw "nothing in OCGA § 9-11-15 that specifically addressed or altered the narrow construction." That reasoning has a couple of problems.
To begin with, we should clarify something about the rule of so-called "strict" or "narrow" construction of the wrongful-death statute, which allows recovery in cases in which the death of a human being results from negligence. See OCGA § 51-4-1 et seq. It is true that our Supreme Court has said that the wrongful-death statute, being in derogation of the common law, must be "strictly construed." Thompson v. Watson , 186 Ga. 396, 405, 197 S.E. 774 (1938), disapproved of on other grounds by Walden v. Coleman , 217 Ga. 599, 604, 124 S.E.2d 265 (1962). But each time the Court has said this or something like it, the Court has made clear that this is not quite a rule of strict construction in the usual sense—that is, it is not a tiebreaker that requires choosing the narrower construction when multiple reasonable ones are pressed. Instead, the Court simply explains that "[t]he express language of the Act will be followed" and "no exceptions to the requirements of the Act will be read into the statute by the courts." Tolbert v. Maner , 271 Ga. 207, 208, 518 S.E.2d 423 (1999) (punctuation and footnote omitted); see also Lovett v. Garvin , 232 Ga. 747, 748, 208 S.E.2d 838 (1974) (...
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