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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA woman who gave her son’s 17-year-old girlfriend another person's ID and posed as her mother to help her obtain an abortion was not properly dismissed from a lawsuit brought by the pregnant girl’s mother, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Friday. Summary judgment in favor of Planned Parenthood of Indiana was proper, the court held.
Angelique Lockett was 17 when she sought an abortion, and her boyfriend’s mother Cathy McGee lent her an 18-year-old girl’s identification, according to the record. The teens looked similar, and McGee accompanied Lockett to a Planned Parenthood office where Lockett signed the other girl’s name.
Lockett was examined and it was confirmed she was pregnant. Six days later after a mandatory waiting period, she returned to the clinic with McGee for an abortion.
Lake Superior Judge William E. Davis granted summary judgment to all defendants in the case, a medical malpractice action against Planned Parenthood that restated similar claims in naming McGee.
“We affirm the trial court’s grant of Planned Parenthood’s motion for summary judgment because the Locketts failed to present their claims first to a medical review panel, as required by the Medical Malpractice Act … and thus the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the claims,” Judge L. Mark Bailey wrote for the panel. “However, to the extent that the trial court’s order appears to have dismissed the Locketts’ claims against defendant Cathy McGee, … we reverse and remand with instructions to correct the order.”
The opinion in Angelique Lockett and Lanetra Lockett v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana, Inc., and Cathy McGee, 45A05-1407-CT-340, notes that while Lockett and McGee misrepresented their identities, a Planned Parenthood employee testified she received the ID and that she “saw no reason to doubt the identity that the patient had presented.”
The suit alleged liability against Planned Parenthood for failing to comply with the state’s informed consent and parental consent statute, I.C. 16-34-2, and claims of assault, battery and negligent infliction of emotional distress against both Planned Parenthood and McGee. The trial court entered summary judgment “for defendants.”
The court noted McGee was not served, making summary judgment for her premature. “Moreover, although the claims the Locketts state against McGee are framed identically to those brought against Planned Parenthood, McGee’s role in encouraging Angelique’s misrepresentation to Planned Parenthood places McGee in a substantially different position than Planned Parenthood,” Bailey wrote. “In this respect, we believe the trial court’s order was also overly-broad.”
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