COLUMBUS, Ohio (Legal Newsline) - A four-year time limit on filing lawsuits over “medical claims” includes wrongful-death claims based on medical malpractice, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in a decision opposed by trial lawyers and three of the court’s justices.
Stating the statute of repose “means what it says,” the Supreme Court resolved a split among state appellate courts on the question of whether Ohio Revised Code 2305.113(C) applies to wrongful death claims. Another statute, RC Chapter 2125, sets a time limit of two years after a person’s death for filing most types of wrongful-death claims.
The time difference was critical for Machelle Everhart, who sued Coshocton County Memorial Hospital, two of its doctors and a number of others over the death of her husband Todd in December 2007. The plaintiff claimed the defendants were responsible for his death because a doctor saw a mass on a chest x-ray after Everhart was admitted to the hospital following a car accident in 2001 but failed to follow up.
Everhart was readmitted to Coshocton in 2007 and diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. He died three months later.
After more than a decade of litigation delayed by the bankruptcy of the hospital, the Tenth District Court of Appeals ruled the statute of repose doesn’t apply to wrongful-death claims, citing two prior Ohio Supreme Court decisions that held wrongful-death claims are separate from malpractice claims. (A statute of repose sets an absolute time limit for filing claims after a wrongful act has occurred, while a statute of limitations usually begins to run after the plaintiff discovers an injury.)
The Tenth District noted there was a split among Ohio appeals courts on this question and the doctors appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court to resolve it.
The Ohio statute of repose for medical lawsuits defines “medical claim” as any claim against a physician or hospital “that arises out of the medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of any person.” The majority opinion, authored by Justice Pat Fischer, held that definition includes wrongful deaths arising from medical care.
“Since the General Assembly enacted the medical-claim statute of repose, this court has decided multiple cases analyzing it—each time declaring that R.C. 2305.113(C) means what it says,” the majority ruled.
While it is true a separate law governs wrongful-death claims, that doesn’t mean the two laws conflict, the court said.
Justices Michael Donnelly, Melody Stewart and Jennifer Brunner issued dissenting opinions that together were three times as long as the majority opinion. Justice Donnelly said that since the General Assembly created the claim of wrongful death by statute, it couldn’t be included in the common-law claims considered to be “medical claims” in the medical statute of repose.
While legislators have steadily expanded the claims covered under the medical statute of repose, the dissenters said, they all have had roots in the common law. The claim of wrongful death was created by statute and doesn’t belong among them, the dissenters said.
The majority’s decision also will cause the statute of repose “to run in many cases before the stricken patient even manages to die, preventing his or her relatives from bringing a wrongful-death suit unless they macabrely bring it before their loved one dies,” Justice Brunner wrote.