DES MOINES, Iowa (Legal Newsline) - Parents who sued over the death of their infant child failed to file the proper administrative claims first, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled, but the estate of the child can continue with a $15 million lawsuit claiming a misplaced feeding tube caused the baby’s death.
Carter Anderson was born in 2008 and admitted to the hospital on May 31, 2018, because his feeding tube had become dislodged. On June 1 he was found unresponsive and transferred to another hospital where he died.
A little less than two years later, Terry and Alexandria Anderson filed claims for $15 million with the State Appeal Board as required under the Iowa Tort Claims Act. The claim form listed Alexandria Anderson as administrator of her son’s estate even though she wasn’t appointed to that role until 21 days later.
The state acknowledged receipt of the forms but didn’t take any action, so in November Anderson’s lawyers notified the state they were withdrawing administrative claims and would file a lawsuit instead. They sued in January 2021, naming three plaintiffs: Anderson as administrator of her son’s estate and Alexandra and Terry Anderson personally. The estate sued for burial expenses and pain and suffering, while the parents sued for loss of consortium.
A trial court dismissed their cases, citing the plaintiffs’ failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The parents had never filed with the state and Alexandria Anderson wasn’t the executor of her son’s estate when she filed with the State Appeal Board, the court ruled.
The plaintiffs appealed and the Iowa Supreme Court gave them a partial victory in a Feb. 9 decision by Justice David May restoring the child’s estate claims. Iowa enjoyed complete immunity from tort claims until ITCA was passed in 1965, the court observed. But even after then the law contained a significant hurdle: Plaintiffs must file administrative claims before they can sue.
In this case, the parents didn’t cross that hurdle, the court ruled. The parents argued they effectively gave notice to the state with the estate’s claim but the Supreme Court said the estate couldn’t sue for loss of consortium.
“Upon a fair reading, the claims filed are not claims on behalf of Alexandria or Terry as individual claimants,” the court ruled. “Rather, the claim forms made it clear that an estate -- not individual parents -- was presenting claims.”
The trial court erred by dismissing the estate’s claims, however, the court ruled.
“The law of estates recognizes that, when a person dies, a representative may act to protect the estate’s interests even before the representative is appointed,” the court said. While any delay in naming an executor doesn’t relax the statute of limitations, the court said, the estate filed within that deadline.
The Carters were represented by Andrew Mahoney and Edward J. Prill of Crowley & Prill.