Billeaudeau v. Opelousas General Hospital Authority

189 So. 3d 561, 15 La.App. 3 Cir. 1034, 2016 WL 1358014, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 649
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 6, 2016
DocketNo. 15-1034
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 189 So. 3d 561 (Billeaudeau v. Opelousas General Hospital Authority) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Billeaudeau v. Opelousas General Hospital Authority, 189 So. 3d 561, 15 La.App. 3 Cir. 1034, 2016 WL 1358014, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 649 (La. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinions

PICKETT, Judge.

| ¶ Opelousas General Hospital Authority (Opelousas General) appeals a judgment of the trial court holding that a claim for “negligent credentialing’’ of a physician by a hospital does not constitute medical malpractice subject to the terms of the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act (MMA), La. R.S. 40:1231.1, et seq.

FACTS

On June 20, 2010, Brandi Billeaudeau was taken to Opelousas General after collapsing in her parents’ home. Brandi is a thirty-five-year-old woman with Down syndrome. Veronica Billeaudeau, Brandi’s [563]*563mother and a nurse, and her husband Joseph transported their daughter to the hospital, where she was diagnosed by the emergency room (ER) physician, Dr. Kon-dilo Skirlis-Zavala, with focal motor seizure. Dr. Skirlis-Zavala ordered the administration of anti-seizure medication and a CT scan, which was reported as normal.

The Billeaudeaus disagreed., with the doctor’s diagnosis and .thought their daughter had suffered a stroke. They asked that their daughter be given tPA (t-plasminogen activator), a treatment for stroke victims. However, according to the allegations of the Billeaudeaus, they were informed that their daughter was not a candidate for tPA. The Billeaudeaus requested that Brandi be transferred to Our Lady of Lourdes (OLOL) in Lafayette. Dr. Skirlis-Zavala arranged for Brandi to be transferred to OLOL, where she was given tPA four hours after she suffered what was ultimately determined to be a stroke.

Veronica Billeaudeau, individually and as curatrix of Brandi, and Joseph Billeau-deau pursued a claim under the MMA and brought suit in general negligence against Opelousas General, among other 'defendants. They filed a motion for partial sumr mary judgment asking that the trial court declare that their ^demands against Opel-ousas General for negligent credentialing were not subject to the terms of the MMA, including the cap on damages found in La.R.S. 40:1231.2(B)(1). The trial court granted this motion.

Opelousas General sought a writ of supervisory review from this court, which was denied. Billeaudeau v. Opelousas Gen. Hosp. Auth., 15-821 (La.App. 3 Cir. 9/28/15) (unpublished). One member of the panel dissented and would have granted the writ application. Opelousas General then sought a writ of certiorari from the Louisiana Supreme Court, which was also denied. Billeaudeau v. Skirlis-Zavala, 15-1948 (La.11/30/15), 182 So.3d 43. In the meantime, the trial court certified its grant of partial summary judgment as a final judgment. Opelousas General has now filed this appeal.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR

On appeal, Opelousas, General asserts three assignments of error (footnotes omitted):

1. Contrary to the holding in Plaisance v. Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, Inc., [10-348 (La.App. 3 Cir. 10/6/10), 47 So.3d 17, writ denied, 10-2520 (La.1/14/11), 52 So.3d 904] the district court erred in its legal conclusion that a “negligent credentialing” claim coupled with a negligent supervision claim against a hospital, qualified as a health care provider, did not constitute an act of “malpractice” under Louisiana’s Medical Malpractice Act (“LMMA”), La.R.S. 40:1231.1(A)(13).
2. The trial court’s error was induced by disregarding its own analysis of the negligent credentialing claim under the Coleman v. Deno [, 01-1517 (La.1/25/02), 813 So.2d 303,] factors that producéd á contrary conclusion.
3. The trial court’s error , was compounded by employing an expression unius est exclusion alterius statutory analysis that misapprehends the rule of strict construction and leads to an absurd conclusion the Legislature must have intended to exclude “negligent ere-.dentialing” claims- from the -LMMA’s definition of “malpractice” .coverage when it amended that definition in 2001 to include “all legal responsibility of a health care provider arising from acts or |.emissions-'... in-the training .or supervision of health care providers.” .

[564]*564ANALYSIS

This court has already ruled on this exact issue in an application for supervisory writs. Thus, the discretionary “law of the case” doctrine is clearly applicable.

This doctrine provides that “an appellate court will not reconsider its own rulings of law in the same case.” Lejano v. Bandak, 97-388, p. 23 (La.12/12/97), 705 So.2d 158, 170, cert. denied, 525 U.S. 815, 119 S.Ct. 52, 142 L.Ed.2d 40 (1998). This doctrine, however, is purely discretionary and will not apply “in eases of palpable error or when, if the law of the case were applied, manifest injustice would occur.’ ” Id.

Shallow v. Gulf Coast Soc. Servs., 15-91, p. 7 (La.App. 3 Cir. 6/10/15), 166 So.3d 1239, 1245-46, writs denied, 15-1336, 15-1355 (La.10/9/15), 178 So.3d 1002, 1003. We will review the ruling of this court to determine if there is palpable error.

We review summary judgments de novo, applying the same criteria the trial court considered in determining whether summary judgment was appropriate. Gray v. Am. Nat’l Prop. & Cas. Co., 07-1670 (La.2/26/08), 977 So.2d 839.

Every medical malpractice claim asserted against a health care provider that is properly qualified must be pursued subject to the terms of the MMA. La.R.S. 40:1231.8(A)(l)(a); La.R.S; 40:1231.2(B). The MMA defines malpractice as:

[A]ny unintentional tort or any breach of contract based on health care or professional services rendered, or which should have been rendered, by a health care provider, to a patient, including failure to render services timely and the handling of a patient, including loading and unloading of a patient, and also includes all legal ■ responsibility of a health care provider arising from acts or omissions during the procurement of blood or blood components, in the training or supervision of health care providers, or from defects in blood, tissue, transplants, drugs, and medicines, or from defects in or failures of prosthetic devices implanted in or used on or in the person of a patient.

La.R.S. 40:1231.1(A)(13). Whether certain acts or omissions constitute “malpractice” under the MMA’s definition has been extensively litigated. The supreme court has provided the analytical framework within which such an analysis is to take place. In Coleman v. Deno, 01-1517, 01-1519, 01-1521, pp. 17-18 (La.1/25/02), 813 So.2d 303, 315-16, the supreme court enunciated the test (citations and footnote omitted):

In determining whether certain conduct by a qualified health care provider constitutes “malpractice” as defined under the MMA this court has utilized the following three factors:
“[1] whether the particular wrong is ‘treatment related’ or caused by a dereliction of professional skill,”
[2] whether the wrong requires expert medical evidence to determine whether the appropriate standard of care was breached, and
“[3] whether the pertinent act or omission involved assessment of the patient’s condition.”
The latter annotation lists three additional factors that courts have considered, and we now add those to our Sewell [v. Doctors Hosp., 600 So.2d 577 (La.1992) ] list; to wit:

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189 So. 3d 561, 15 La.App. 3 Cir. 1034, 2016 WL 1358014, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 649, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/billeaudeau-v-opelousas-general-hospital-authority-lactapp-2016.