Dr. Daniel Bailey (Appellant) and his wife, Katherine, began divorce proceedings in 2008. Because the file included sensitive information, the trial court ordered that the file be sealed. In 2010, two of Appellant's former patients and their spouses (the Intervening Parties) filed medical negligence claims against Appellant. The Intervening Parties subsequently moved to intervene in the Baileys’ divorce action for the purpose of trying to unseal portions of the divorce record. The circuit court granted the motion to intervene and ordered the divorce record unsealed. Appellant filed a petition for writ of prohibition against the enforcement of the trial court’s order. The Court of Appeals denied the petition after noting that there was no adequate remedy by appeal and reaching the merits of the claimed error. The Supreme Court affirmed but on different ground, holding that the writ was correctly denied because Appellant had an adequate remedy by appeal, and therefore, the remedy of a writ was unavailable to him. View "Bailey v. Hon. Bertram" on Justia Law

Twenty-nine individual Respondents filed eight separate civil actions alleging that Petitioners - three pharmacies and a physician - and other medical providers negligently prescribed and dispensed controlled substances causing Respondents to become addicted to and abuse the controlled substances. Petitioners moved for summary judgment asserting that Respondents’ claims were barred as a matter of law on the basis of Respondents’ admissions of their own criminal activity associated with the prescription and dispensation of controlled substances by Petitioners. Specifically, Petitioners maintained that Respondents’ actions were barred by the “wrongful conduct” rule and/or the doctrine of in pari delicto. The circuit court concluded that the actions were not barred but certified questions regarding the issue to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court answered that any wrongdoing on the part of Respondents must be assessed under the Court’s precepts of comparative negligence and does not per se operate as a complete bar to Respondents’ causes of action. View "Tug Valley Pharmacy, LLC v. All Plaintiffs Below" on Justia Law

The named plaintiff in this case (Plaintiff) obtained a judgment in her favor against Defendants arising out of their medical malpractice. The Supreme Court concluded that the trial court had applied the wrong legal standard in concluding that Plaintiff was not entitled to postjudgment interest and remanded the case to the trial court for consideration of Plaintiff’s request for postjudgment interest under the correct legal standard. Thereafter, the trial court awarded Plaintiff postjudgment interest in the amount of $3,178,696. The Supreme Court reversed in part the order of the trial court, holding (1) the trial court, in awarding eight percent interest on the underlying judgment, did not err in considering the rate of return on certain investments Plaintiff claimed she would have earned if the judgment had been satisfied in a timely manner; but (2) the trial court improperly awarded such interest from October 28, 2010, the date on which the judgment was satisfied, rather than from November 5, 2013, the date on which the trial court awarded postjudgment interest. View "DiLieto v. County Obstetrics & Gynecology Group, P.C." on Justia Law

In 2007, Clyde Snider, Jr. was hospitalized for a suspected myocardial infarction. He would later get surgery and be given a pacemaker. Following up on an unrelated issue, Snider's treating doctors found infection at the site of the pacemaker. The doctor who recommended implantation of the pacemaker was found to have rushed the decision to give Snider the pacemaker. "Except for the relatively minor complication of a hematoma, and the surgical scar after pacemaker extraction," a medical review panel found no evidence of any long term, major injury to Snider. Snider sued the treating doctor and his liability insurer for damages arising out of the doctor's alleged negligence in the implantation of the pacemaker. A jury later found that the doctor did not breach the appropriate standard of care in Snider's medical negligence action, which Snider appealed. Finding that the jury's verdict was supported by the evidence and was not clearly wrong, the Supreme Court affirmed the verdict. View "Snider v. Louisiana Medical Mutual Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Kyle and Marla Moore timely filed a medical malpractice suit against St. Dominic Hospital, Jackson Neurosurgery Clinic, and several physicians, claiming that the physicians and hospital had been negligent in treating Kyle in May 2004. Kyle complained of lower back pain. Kyle was diagnosed with an epidural abscess. Kyle went to the emergency room at St. Dominic on the morning of May 23, 2004; within a 24-hour period, Kyle was seen by a series of doctors at the hospital before getting an operation on May 24. The Moores contended that surgery should have been done sooner and that the delay in treatment resulted in neurological injury to Kyle. In March 2011, the Moores added Dr. Howard Holaday as a defendant. Dr. Holaday moved for summary judgment, asserting that the two-year statute of limitations had expired. The trial court denied summary judgment, and Dr. Holaday petitioned the Supreme Court for an interlocutory appeal. The issue this appeal presented for the Court's review was whether the discovery rule tolled the statute of limitations against Dr. Holaday. The Court held that whether the discovery rule tolls the statute of limitations required a determination by the trier of fact (here, the jury) regarding the “date the alleged act, omission or neglect shall or with reasonable diligence might have been first discovered.” The trial court, therefore, properly denied summary judgment to Dr. Holaday. View "Holaday v. Moore" on Justia Law

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