HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - A pair of rulings from the Connecticut Supreme Court will give guidance to health care providers hoping to use the immunity afforded them during the COVID pandemic to fight lawsuits.
The court officially released two opinions earlier this month - one in the case of a COVID-negative nursing home patient who fell and ultimately died, and the other in the lawsuit of a woman who suffered a heart attack but treatment was delayed until her COVID test came back negative.
The cases drew amicus briefs from the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association, the Connecticut Hospital Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others.
Regency House of Wallingford was on the wrong end of one of the decisions, in a lawsuit brought on behalf of the Estate of Darlene Matejek. The Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the nursing home's motion to dismiss, finding there remain questions about whether Regency House was short on resources thanks to the pandemic at the time of Matejek's fall.
That fall occurred April 26,2020, during a bed transfer. Staff did not report it to Matejek's family, but when Matejek was transferred to a hospital days later because of pain, it was discovered she had fractures in both femurs.
The suit alleges the fall and delay in treatment led Matejek to suffer a heart arrythmia, atrial fibrillation, severe anxiety, stress, pain and suffering. She died that December, and lawyers for Matejek's estate said her treatment had nothing to do with COVID, so the immunity afforded health care professionals by a state executive order did not apply.
The immunity extends to health care professionals and facilities "while providing health care services in support of the state's COVID-19 response." The Supreme Court found Regency House failed to establish a lack of resources due to COVID led to Matejek's fall and deteriorating health afterward.
"It is true that the defendants provided an affidavit... to establish that the COVID-19 pandemic created vast difficulties for the defendants - staff shortages due to virus exposure, shortages of personal protective equipment, increased phone call volume, weakened condition of Regency House residents, and increased requests for nurse evaluations," the decision says.
"Thus, the defendants offered evidence of a lack of specific resources d that the COVID-19 pandemic caused this lack of resources. But there is no evidence in the record about how he lack of these specific resources specifically related to the defendants' alleged actions and/or omissions that caused Matejek's injuries."
In the companion case, Cheryl Mills went to Hartford Hospital in March 2020 with a sore throat and headache. Staff there weren't allowed to take her to the hospital's catheterization lab until COVID had been ruled out, and doctors suspected COVID-induced myocarditis instead of myocardial infarction.
It took several days for the test to come back COVID-negative. After, she went into the sole care Dr. William Farrell, and it took close to 11 hours for him to order Mills to a coronary angiogram in the cath lab.
Before it could happen, Mills suffered a fatal heart attack. The Supreme Court found that Connecticut's immunity provision extended to everyone involved in Mills' treatment when she was suspected of having COVID but not to Farrell's treatment after the negative test.
The case also brought issues related to the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Act. It reversed the trial court's finding the defendants were immune from suit under the PREP Act for acts before the negative COVID test and reinstated allegations of gross negligence pre-test result.
"The mere fact that the defendant physicians administered and used a COVID-19 test did not, in and of itself, dictate whether they should proceed with treatment while the rest result was pending, and that decision was driven, rather, by the defendant physicians' provisional COVID-19 diagnosis and (Hartford Hospital's) protocols, and there would have been no delay attributable to the defendant physicians if they had immediately diagnosed her with a myocardial infarction, despite suspecting that she suffered from COVID-19, and had immediately admitted her to the hospital's cardiac catheterization lab while the COVID-19 test result was pending, as the plaintiff alleged they should have done," the decision says.
Thus, Mills' estate can proceed with counts alleging gross negligence to all defendants, regardless of whether they only participated in pre-COVID test result treatment.