López-Rivera v. Hospital Auxilio Mutuo, Inc.

247 F. Supp. 3d 185
CourtDistrict Court, D. Puerto Rico
DecidedMarch 30, 2017
DocketCivil No. 16-1129 (ADC)
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 247 F. Supp. 3d 185 (López-Rivera v. Hospital Auxilio Mutuo, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
López-Rivera v. Hospital Auxilio Mutuo, Inc., 247 F. Supp. 3d 185 (prd 2017).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

AIDA M. DELGADO-COLÓN, Chief United States District Judge.

On January 22, 2016, plaintiff José A. López-Rivera (“López”) initiated this diversity tort action by filing a complaint against Hospital Auxilio Mutuo, Inc. (“hospital”), a group of doctors at the hospital, the doctors’ spouses and Conjugal Partnerships, and the insurer SIMED. ECF No. 1. López claims emotional damages due to the death of his father, Aníbal López, by acute myocardial infarction on January 25, 2015, following his father’s admission to the hospital’s, emergency room, the .prior evening. Id, On February 29, 2016, López amended the complaint as a matter of course, adding two new co-defendants; EM Physicians of Puerto Rico, P.S.C. (“EM Physicians”), the doctors’ alleged employer; and Admiral Insurance Company (“Admiral”), EM Physicians’ alleged insurer. ECF No. 4. EM Physicians and Admiral (jointly “defendants”) have timely moved the Court to dismiss the amended complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). ECF No. 38, López opposes the motion.. ECF No. 56. The Court now grants defendants’ motion and dismisses the action without prejudice.

'Defendants argue that the Court should dismiss the amended complaint for two reasons; it is time-barred, and it also fails to state a claim. See ECF No. 38. Because the Court can easily dispose of this matter [187]*187on the latter ground, the Court will address only the facial insufficiency of the amended complaint. The Court expresses no view about the timeliness of the action.

“[T]o survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must include ‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face’ ” In re ARIAD Pharms. Sec. Litig., 842 F.3d 744, 756 (1st Cir. 2016) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). “[W]here a complaint pleads facts that are merely consistent with a defendant’s liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of -entitlement to relief.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009)). Moreover, “the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions.” Labor Relations Div. of Constr. Indus. of Mass., Inc. v. Healey, 844 F.3d 318, 327 (1st Cir. 2016) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937).

“Federal courts sitting in diversity apply the substantive law of the state and, pursuant to statute, Puerto Rico is treated as a state for diversity purposes.” Quality Cleaning Prods. R.C., Inc. v. SCA Tissue N. Am., LLC, 794 F.3d 200, 204 (1st Cir. 2015) (citing Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938); then citing 28 U.S.C. § 1332(e)). “Under the law of torts in Puerto Rico, including medical malpractice ..., relatives are entitled to ‘compensation for the sufferings, emotional distress, or mental anguish experienced as a consequence of the material or other damages caused directly to their relatives.’ ” Santana-Concepcion v. Centro Medico del Turabo, Inc., 768 F.3d 5, 10 (1st Cir. 2014) (quoting Santini Rivera v. Serv Air, Inc., 137 D.P.R. 1, 10 (P.R. 1994) (official translation)). But the tort claim of a relative, like López, “is derivative and depends on the viability of the underlying claim of the relative,” his father, who suffered the primary injury. Mendez-Matos v. Municipality of Guaynabo, 557 F.3d 36, 57 (1st Cir. 2009) (citing Caban Hernández v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 486 F.3d 1, 12-13 (1st Cir. 2007)). Thus, to state his own claim, López must allege facts that show it is plausible that his father was the victim of medical malpractice.

“A successful medical malpractice claim, under Puerto Rico law, requires a party to establish ‘(1) the duty owed; (2) an act or omission transgressing that duty; and (3) a sufficient causal nexus between the' breach and the harm.’ ” Rosa-Rivera v. Dorado Health, Inc., 787 F.3d 614, 620-21 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting Marcano Rivera v. Turabo Med. Ctr. P’ship, 415 F.3d 162, 167 (1st Cir. 2005); then citing P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5141). Moreover, under Puerto Rico law, a health-care provider “is presumed to have exercised reasonable care in the discharge of his functions.” Medina Santiago v. Velez, 20 P.R. Offic. Trans. 399, 404, 120 D.P.R. 380, 385 (P.R. 1988) (citing Rivera v. Dunscombe, 73 P.R.R. 764, 783, 73 D.P.R. 819 (P.R. 1952)). Thus, “[t]he occurrence of an accident is not itself sufficient to prove negligence” in a case of alleged medical malpractice. Id. Similarly, because physicians cannot “guarantee a favorable result in each case, failure in the treatment prescribed or in the diagnosis made does not alone constitute a negligent act.” Id.

In their motion to dismiss, defendants complain that “[t]he facts alleged in the Amended Complaint do not specify what was the performance or conduct that resulted in [the] medical malpractice and [188]*188negligence that allegedly lead to the death of [López’s] father,” ECF No. 38 at 8. Defendants correctly observe that “[a]fter stating the medical treatment” provided to López’s father, the amended complaint simply “concludes negligence and medical malpractice, without stating specifically in what conduct the [allegation of] medical malpractice is based upon.” Id. at 8-9. Those “conclusions,” which occur in Sections V and VI of the amended complaint where López alleges his cause of action and damages, “are mere recitations of the elements of the claim.” Id. at 9 (citing ECF No. 4, ¶¶ 44-48). Finally, defendants argue that the death of a patient under active medical care does not, without more, provide a sufficient basis upon which to find it plausible that the care, itself, was negligent or constituted malpractice. Id.

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Bluebook (online)
247 F. Supp. 3d 185, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lopez-rivera-v-hospital-auxilio-mutuo-inc-prd-2017.