As Tennessee Courts continue to grapple with what exactly constitutes substantial compliance when sending pre-suit notice of a healthcare liability action, a recent case provides hope that a reasoned approach may ultimately prevail – a HIPAA form sent with the pre-suit notice letter was found to substantially comply with the notice…
Not all claims brought against health care providers fall under the Tennessee Health Care Liability Act (THCLA), and a recent case from the Tennessee Court of Appeals gives crucial guidance on how to distinguish THCLA claims from ordinary, non-statutory tort claims. In Ellithorpe v.…
In Harper v. Bradley County, No. E2014-COA-R9-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 30, 2014), the Tennessee Supreme Court clarified one aspect of the interplay between the Health Care Liability Act (“HCLA”) and the Governmental Tort Liability Act (“GTLA”). The Court held that under the current version of the HCLA, health care…
If a health care liability defendant moves to dismiss based on the failure to file a sufficient certificate of good faith, can the plaintiff nonsuit before the trial court rules on the motion? Davis v. Ibach, W2013-02514-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 9, 2014) is the latest opinion that says the…
In Robinson v. Baptist Memorial Hospital, No. W2013-01198-COA-R3-CV (July 11, 2014), the court addressed the fraudulent concealment exception to the statute of limitations and statute of repose for medical negligence actions in Tennessee. In this case, the defendant doctor erased the initial version of his consult note and changed his…
As far as I can remember, Evans v. Williams, No. W2013-02051-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 30, 2014),is the first and only case dealing with whether a health care liability expert must be familiar with demographic information about the defendant’s community from the time the alleged malpractice occurred. To be sure, the…
In Arden v. Kozawa, M.D, No. E2013-01598-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 18, 2014), Plaintiff in a health care liability action appealed after his lawsuit brought on behalf of his deceased wife was dismissed at trial for failing to strictly comply with Tennessee’s pre-suit notice requirements. Plaintiff’s wife was allegedly negligently…
Tenn. Code Ann. Sec. 29-26-122 requires medical malpractice complaints to be supported by a certificate of good faith. This statute became effective October 1, 2008, yet because health care cases can linger for years in pre-trial stages, many cases filed before that date are still active. The Tennessee Court of…
In Tennessee, before a party may file a lawsuit against a healthcare provider for medical malpractice, the party must give 60 days’ pre-suit notice pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-121(a). In Brown v. Samples, No. E2013-00799-COA-R9-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Apr. 29, 2014), the State of Tennessee was granted permission…
Our office is fortunate to be sought out in a large number of Tennessee medical malpractice cases involving cancer. Most of the cases involve a delay in the diagnosis of cancer, that is, that the patient presented with certain symptoms or physical findings that should have triggered a diagnosis…