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A split Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday the Indiana Medical Malpractice Act does apply to claims in a class-action lawsuit brought in Elkhart Superior Court on behalf of patients against an unspecified hospital.
The high court affirmed the lower court’s ruling on the application of the MMA, but reversed the trial court’s denial of the patients’ motion for class certification.
The court found that the law covers all claims for medical “malpractice” (as that term is defined) and is not limited to claims involving only bodily injury or death.
It also ruled that the trial court had jurisdiction to preliminarily determine class certification and remanded the case for the trial court to consider the plaintiffs’ certification motion.
According to court records, Linda Gierek was one of more than 1,000 patients who had a surgical procedure at an unspecified hospital and who were later informed that one of the hospital’s technicians didn’t complete a step in sterilizing surgical instruments.
Gierek and her husband filed a class-action complaint with the Elkhart Superior Court and a proposed class-action complaint with the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Insurance, asserting claims against the hospital for negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence and, in the alternative, medical malpractice.
The Giereks also filed motions requesting the certification of two classes: one for the hospital’s patients and another for patients’ spouses.
Additional plaintiffs were permitted to intervene in the action, which was consolidated with a later-filed class-action brought by Cheyanne Bennett, who filed her own motion for class certification.
The Indiana Patient’s Compensation Fund intervened and filed a motion for partial summary judgment, asserting the Indiana Medical Malpractice Act doesn’t apply to the plaintiffs’ claims. The plaintiffs filed statements in support of the PCF’s motion.
The hospital filed a cross-motion for partial summary judgment, asserting the MMA does apply.
The trial court denied the PCF’s motion for partial summary judgment and granted the hospital’s cross-motion for partial summary judgment, ruling the MMA applies to the plaintiffs’ claims.
But the trial court also denied the plaintiffs’ motions for class certification, ruling it did not have subject-matter jurisdiction to grant them as a preliminary determination under the MMA.
In June, the Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part.
The appellate court found that the trial court didn’t err in concluding the MMA applies to their claims. But the appellate court agreed that the trial court erred in its conclusion that it didn’t have subject-matter jurisdiction to grant the motions to certify a class.
The issue was remanded for full consideration of the plaintiffs’ motions for class certification.
In their petition to transfer, defendants “Anonymous 1”, “Anonymous 2” and “Anonymous 3” argued the appellate court had violated well-established rules of statutory construction.
The supreme court granted transfer in October.
Justice Christopher Goff, writing for the majority, said the court concluded that the MMA covers all claims for “malpractice” by a “patient” against a “health care provider” (as those terms are defined in the Act) and that nothing in the state’s Complaint Statute limits this scope of coverage.
“Our conclusion follows from the plain language of the Complaint Statute, and it aligns with decades of precedent, the Act’s legislative history, and its overarching purpose. What’s more, our reading of the Statute ensures compliance with the MMA’s statute of limitations by patients, like those here, that may suffer from a latent bodily injury following an act of malpractice,” Goff wrote, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Mark Massa.
The court also ruled the trial court had jurisdictional discretion to preliminarily determine class certification in the case.
Goff wrote the act only prohibits a trial court from issuing a preliminary determination on an “affirmative defense or issue of law or fact” reserved for the panel’s expert opinion—i.e., whether the defendant “failed to comply with the appropriate standard of care” and whether the conduct factored into the “resultant damages.”
Justice Geoffrey Slaughter concurred in the judgment in part and dissented in part with a separate opinion, which Justice Derek Molter joined.
Slaughter wrote that the act does not apply because the plaintiffs are not alleging “bodily injury or death”.
“The plaintiffs here have not alleged bodily injury (or death)—only emotional distress. Their limited allegation means their claims are not subject to the act,” Slaughter wrote.
The case is Linda Gierek and Stephen Gierek, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, et al. v. Anonymous 1, Anonymous 2, and Anonymous 3, et al. and Amy L. Beard, Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Insurance, 23S-CT-277.
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