Where an HCLA plaintiff sent pre-suit notice to a hospital and two doctors, the hospital had all the relevant documents, the doctors were independent contractors of the hospital who could only access the records for treatment purposes, and plaintiff’s HIPAA form was noncompliant and only allowed records to be released…
Where there was a question of fact regarding when plaintiff was put on notice of his potential HCLA claim, and plaintiff provided an expert affidavit in support of his claims, summary judgment based on the statute of limitations and a lack of proof on causation and damages was reversed. In…
Every time there is a airplane crash, we hear about the efforts to locate “the black box.” The “black box” is a flight data recorder – a device that constantly gathers information from dozens of sources about the operation of the airplane. There is also a cockpit voice recorder, which…
According to the Tennessee Supreme Court, where an HCLA defendant did not assert in his answer that a non-party physician was the cause-in-fact of plaintiff’s injuries, the trial court did not err by excluding evidence supporting that allegation at trial, even when the defendant did not seek to prove that…
The Tennessee Supreme Court has accepted Rule 11 review of Richards v. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, No. M2022-00597-COA-R3-CV, 2023 WL 4451631 (Tenn. Ct. App. July 11, 2023). Plaintiff first filed suit on December 12, 2014, relying on the 120-extension of the statute of limitations provided by Tenn. Code Ann. Sec. 29-26-121.…
Where plaintiff’s HCLA claims were based upon medical care he received while incarcerated, and his only medical expert had never practiced or studied medical care for incarcerated persons, summary judgment for defendant was affirmed. In Higgins v. CoreCivic, Inc., No. E2022-01101-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 23, 2023), plaintiff fell from…
Where an HCLA pre-suit notice was sent by decedent’s mother, but the notice failed to mention decedent’s two minor children who were the proper parties to bring the action, the trial court should have granted defendant hospital’s motion to dismiss. In Denson v. Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge, No.…
Where plaintiff signed an informed consent document and failed to present any expert testimony regarding the sufficiency or circumstances of the document, summary judgment for defendant on plaintiff’s informed consent HCLA claim was affirmed. In Jarnagin v. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, No. M2022-01012-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 31, 2023), plaintiff…
Where an arbitration agreement had been signed by a decedent’s attorney in fact upon the decedent’s admission into a nursing home, and on a motion to compel arbitration filed by the nursing home the trial court considered evidence on whether the decedent had the mental capacity to execute the power…
The Tennessee Bar Journal has just published my article, “Tennessee Supreme Court Creates the “Colleague Privilege.” The article discusses the implications of a brand-new privilege which provides that “a defendant healthcare provider cannot be compelled to provide expert opinion testimony about another defendant provider’s standard of care or deviation from that…