VENTURA, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – A distraught woman who ingested 60 pain reliever pills then fell in an emergency room has to claim her injuries were the result of medical negligence, a California appeals court has ruled.
Thus, Stacy Mitchell’s lawsuit against Los Robles Regional Medical Center will be dismissed for failing to comply with the one-year statute of limitations for medical professional negligence, the Second Appellate District decided on Nov. 2.
The nursing staff decided Mitchell could use the restroom without assistance, leading to her fall.
“Their duty to, for example, protect her from falling while walking in the emergency room was a duty owed to a patient, not a member of the general public,” Justice Kenneth Yegan wrote.
She went to the emergency room on the morning of May 27, 2017, after swallowing 60 Naproxen tablets the night before. She was upset over the death of a pet, the opinion says.
She vomited twice and had abdominal cramps. A doctor at the ER noted she was experiencing nausea and abdominal pain and had a resting tremor, though she was alert and oriented. The doctor was of the impression that she had suffered an acute kidney injury.
After a few hours, Mitchell walked to the restroom with assistance from her husband, then back to her bed unassisted. But she fell on the way back and severely injured her knee. She told staff that her legs “gave out.”
She explained there was nothing wrong with the floor or lighting, further prodding the court to consider this a case of alleged medical negligence instead of general negligence or premises liability.
She didn’t sue until nearly two years later, believing she could make a claim for general negligence and avoid the one-year window for medical claims. The Ventura County Superior Court disagreed and tossed her case.
“We recognize that accompanying someone to the restroom is not a sophisticated medical procedure. But that is not determinative,” the ruling says. “Section 340.5 applies to more than tasks that ‘require advanced medical skills and training. A medical professional or other hospital staff member may commit a negligent act in rendering medical care, thereby causing a patient’s injury, even where no particular medical skills were required to complete the task at hand.”