A former patient of Dr. Ryan Mitchell, through his guardian ad litem, sued Mitchell for medical malpractice, alleging that Mitchell’s misadministration of anesthesia during a tonsillectomy caused the seven-year-old patient’s heart to fail. Mitchell admitted that at the time he operated on the patient he was addicted to Ketamine and Valium. During discovery, Plaintiff subpoenaed Mitchell’s counseling and substance abuse treatment records. Mitchell objected, citing the doctor-patient and family therapist-client privileges. The district court overruled Mitchell’s claims. Mitchell sought an extraordinary writ directing the district court to protect as privileged the records relating to his substance abuse. The Supreme Court conditionally granted the writ, holding (1) Mitchell’s family and marital therapy records were privileged; and (2) Mitchell’s doctor-patient records, though subject to the statutory patient-litigant exception, should have been reviewed in camera by the district court and appropriate limitations placed on their use before discovery of them was allowed. View "Mitchell v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court" on Justia Law

Shonda Ambers-Phillips and her husband, Richard Phillips, filed a medical malpractice action against SSM DePaul Health Center for leaving foreign objects in Ambers-Phillips’s abdomen nearly fourteen years earlier. The trial court dismissed the complaint with prejudice, concluding that Mo. Rev. Stat.’s ten-year statute of repose applied, making the Phillipses’ claims time-barred and subject to dismissal. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not err in not holding that the statute of repose for foreign-object medical malpractice claims was equitably tolled until Ambers-Phillips discovered the wrong; and (2) statutes of repose are not unconstitutional if not subject to equitable tolling. View "Ambers-Phillips v. SSM DePaul Health Ctr." on Justia Law

Following their two-month-old’s death from whooping cough, Plaintiffs sued Kristin Ault, D.O. and her employer, ETMC First Physicians, alleging that Dr. Ault’s negligence caused the infant’s death and that ETMC was vicariously liable for the negligence. After Plaintiffs served Defendants with an amended expert report, Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, alleging that the expert’s opinions as to causation were conclusory because the report failed to link the expert's opinions to the underlying facts. The trial court denied the motion. The court of appeals reversed and ordered the lawsuit dismissed in light of conflicting statements in the report, which the court held failed to link the expert’s conclusions to the underlying facts. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by determining that the report was not conclusory but was a good faith effort to comply with the Texas Medical Liability Act’s requirements. View "Van Ness v. ETMC First Physicians" on Justia Law

Plaintiff suffered a severe adverse reaction to a compounded drug administered by her physician that left her permanently blind in both eyes. Plaintiff sued the compounding pharmacy and several of its licensed-pharmacist employees. Taking the position that Plaintiff had asserted health care liability claims governed by the Texas Medical Liability Act (Act), the defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s claims for failure to serve them with an expert report. The trial court denied the motion. The court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the pharmacist defendants were not health care providers, the claims against them were not health care liability claims, and therefore, the Act did not apply. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the Act applies to Plaintiff’s claims against the pharmacist defendants; (2) under the applicable version of that Act, Plaintiff was required to serve the defendants with an expert report within 120 days of filing suit; and (3) because Plaintiff failed to do so, her claims must be dismissed. Remanded. View "Randol Mill Pharmacy v. Miller" on Justia Law

In November 2011, following a physical attack on his father, David Brown, Jeffery Brown was involuntarily committed by the Mobile Probate Court to Searcy Hospital, a long-termcare facility for mental illness operated by the Alabama Department of Mental Health. Brown was 19 years old at the time of his commitment and had a long history of mental illness and psychiatric hospitalizations. At Searcy Hospital Brown was assigned a "treatment team." Dr. Amee Kozlovski, a licensed physician and psychiatrist employed by the Alabama Department of Mental Health, was the head of Brown's treatment team and was responsible for making the ultimate judgment about whether Brown met the criteria for discharge from Searcy. During his time at Searcy Hospital, Brown had several incidents of self-injurious behavior but was otherwise fully compliant with his treatment. The treatment team reached a consensus that Brown had met the conditions for discharge. Despite reservations expressed by Brown's family that he would run away from a group-home facility, Brown was discharged a group home owned and operated by Altapointe Health Systems, Inc. Dr. Kozlovski approved the discharge. Shortly after discharge, Brown left Safe Haven without the knowledge of Safe Haven's staff. Ten days later, Brown's body was found lying on a road in Mobile, apparently been struck and killed by a motorist. David Shamlin, as the court-appointed administrator of Brown's estate, initiated the underlying wrongful-death action, naming as defendants Dr. Kozlovski and Altapointe. The complaint alleged that Dr. Kozlovski had been negligent and/or wanton in numerous respects. Dr. Kozlovski filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the claims against her were barred by the doctrine of State-agent immunity. Based on the trial court record the Supreme Court concluded Dr. Kozlovski was entitled to State-agent immunity from the wrongful-death action asserted against her. Accordingly, she had shown a clear legal right to a writ of mandamus to direct the trial court to enter summary judgment in her favor. View "Ex parte Amee Kozlovski, M.D." on Justia Law

Cynthia Woodall filed this wrongful-death action against AAA Ambulance Service, Inc., and Phillip McKey, AAA emergency medical technician-paramedic. In 2010, Cynthia Woodall’s husband suffered a cardiac arrest while working as a heating and cooling contractor at a home in McComb. The homeowner promptly called 911 at 11:54 a.m., and the Pike County Civil Defense/Emergency Management Agency transferred that call to AAA at 11:55 a.m. Woodall alleges that AAA then failed to respond and arrive in a timely manner, and that the ambulance crew, including McKey, failed to follow established protocol for cardiac-arrest response and made minimal attempts to provide Mr. Woodall proper care. The trial court found that, because the defendant was an instrumentality of governmental entities, the suit was controlled by the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. And because the plaintiff failed to file her complaint within the one-year statute of limitations, the circuit judge granted the defendants summary judgment. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Woodall v. AAA Ambulance Service, Inc." on Justia Law

John Krusac, as personal representative of the estate of Dorothy Krusac, brought a medical malpractice action against Covenant Medical Center, Inc., alleging that Dorothy Krusac died as a result of injuries she sustained when she rolled off an operating table following a cardiac catheterization procedure. During discovery, it became known that one of the medical staff present during the procedure had filled out an incident report shortly after the event and submitted it to her supervisor. Plaintiff filed a motion in limine on the eve of trial, asking the court to conduct an in camera inspection of the incident report and provide plaintiff with the facts contained in it. On plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, however, the court reviewed the report in camera and subsequently ordered defendant to provide plaintiff with a portion of the incident report that contained only objective facts in light of "Harrison v Munson Healthcare, Inc," (304 Mich App 1 (2014)), which held that the peer-review privilege did not apply to objective facts contained in an incident report. Defendant sought leave to appeal the order in the Court of Appeals and moved to stay the proceedings, both of which motions the Court of Appeals denied. After its review, the Supreme Court held that the applicable statutory authority that governed this case did not contain an exception to the peer review privilege for objective facts. As a result, that portion of "Harrison" was wrongly decided. Here, the trial court erred by relying on Harrison to order production of the objective-facts portion of the incident report. Therefore, the Supreme Court vacated the trial court’s order and remanded for further proceedings. View "Krusac v. Covenant Medical Center, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued several entities she believed to be responsible for her husband’s death. As required by the Utah Health Care Malpractice Act, Plaintiff first presented her malpractice claims to a prelitigation panel. During the ensuing litigation, designated her expert witnesses. The district court struck the witnesses because Plaintiff’s attorney revealed confidential information about them about the proceedings before the panel. Plaintiff then named two additional expert witnesses. The district court struck the replacement experts because they were designated after the cutoff date established by the scheduling order. Because Plaintiff was then deprived of any experts to establish the necessary elements of her malpractice claim, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court (1) erred by striking the original experts without inquiring whether the confidential information revealed to them influenced their opinions; and (2) erred when it excluded the second set of witnesses because it applied the wrong rule when it sanctioned Plaintiff for violating the scheduling order, and moreover, the sanction of witness exclusion was not warranted in this case. View "Coroles v. State" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued Defendants, alleging that he suffered from spinal injuries as a result of Defendants’ medical malpractice. During discovery, Plaintiff requested a recorded surveillance video that Defendants had created of him. Defendants refused to turn over the video, claiming that it was attorney work product that they intended to use only as impeachment evidence. The court of common pleas ordered Defendants to produce the tape. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s order, concluding that the discovery order was final and appealable. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the court of appeals, holding that Defendants failed to establish that the trial court’s discovery order was a final, appealable order, and therefore, neither this Court nor the court of appeals had jurisdiction to consider the merits of the interlocutory order. View "Smith v. Chen" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought this action against a hospital and a registered nurse, alleging that Defendants negligently discharged Plaintiffs’ suicidal son and that they suffered severe emotional distress when they discovered that their son had hung himself only thirty-five minutes after his discharge. The trial court granted summary judgment to Defendants with respect to Plaintiffs’ bystander emotional distress claim. The Supreme Court affirmed the summary judgment as to Plaintiffs’ claim of negligent infliction of emotional distress, holding that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to whether Plaintiffs suffered severe and debilitating emotional distress as a result of Defendants’ alleged negligence. View "Squeo v. Norwalk Hosp. Ass’n" on Justia Law