St. John's Regional Health Center, Inc. v. Windler

847 S.W.2d 168, 1993 Mo. App. LEXIS 151, 1993 WL 20347
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 3, 1993
Docket18100
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 847 S.W.2d 168 (St. John's Regional Health Center, Inc. v. Windler) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. John's Regional Health Center, Inc. v. Windler, 847 S.W.2d 168, 1993 Mo. App. LEXIS 151, 1993 WL 20347 (Mo. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinions

SHRUM, Judge.

On April 7, 1992, the trial court dismissed the defendant Kelly Windler’s counterclaim against the plaintiff, St. John’s Regional Health Center, Inc. The court found that Windler’s counterclaim — a counterclaim charging St. John’s with false imprisonment of Windier — was barred because of her failure to file a health care affidavit mandated by § 538.225.1, RSMo 1986.1 As a premise to its ruling the trial court said, “St. John’s was acting only in its capacity as a health care provider....” Windier appeals from the judgment of dismissal.2

The issue in this case is whether, as a matter of law, the health care affidavit described in § 538.225.1, RSMo 1986, has to be filed in a false imprisonment case brought against a hospital, when, at the time of the incident, the hospital was acting in its capacity as a health care provider. We conclude that under the circumstances shown by this record, the filing of an affidavit was mandatory. We affirm.

FACTS

On July 29, 1991, St. John’s sued Windier, claiming that she owed $513.78 for medical and hospital care rendered to her on November 15 and 16, 1990. Windier filed an answer in which she admitted that St. John’s was a corporation but denied all other allegations. By a contemporaneously filed counterclaim Windier charged that for two days, St. John’s, acting through its employees, detained her against her will, kept her imprisoned, and restrained her of her liberty, all by means of threats and force; that this incident occurred in a building occupied by St. John's in which it operated a psychiatric hospital; and that by reason of such imprisonment she was humiliated and embarrassed, her reputation was damaged, her nerves were shocked, she suffered severe emotional upset, and she was thereby damaged in the amount of $15,000. St. John’s moved for the dismissal of Windler’s counterclaim, citing her failure to file the § 538.225 affidavit.

Initially, the trial court ruled it would take the motion with the case. Later, relying on Jacobs v. Wolff, 829 S.W.2d 470 (Mo.App.1992), St. John’s asked the trial court to reconsider its earlier action regarding the motion to dismiss. Windier opposed such request, arguing in a written memorandum filed with the trial court that reliance on Jacobs by St. John’s was misplaced. In her memorandum she represented to the trial court that “[t]he evidence will show that [Windier] was unlawfully restrained by [St. John’s] under threat of Sec. 632.305 RSMo. The evidence will further show that at no time did [St. John’s] seek to comply with the requirements of Sec. 632.305 RSMo. and as such involuntarily restrained plaintiff without voluntary consent.”3

The trial court ruled that Jacobs did control and dismissed Windler’s counterclaim. This appeal followed.

[170]*170DISCUSSION AND DECISION

Implicit in the wording of her counterclaim and in her written argument to the trial court is a recognition by Windier that St. John’s was acting in its capacity as a health care provider when the alleged incident of unlawful imprisonment occurred. Neither before the trial court nor to this court does she argue otherwise.4 Rather, she challenges the trial court’s finding that Jacobs governs. In doing so she characterizes the dismissed counts in Jacobs as being clearly founded on negligence principles, and, hence, “were of the nature [that § 538.225.1] was intended to cover, i.e. allegations against a physician for personal injury as a result of the negligence of a physician specifically the breach of duty to provide such care as a reasonably prudent and careful health care provider would have provided under similar circumstances.” She argues that she need not file the § 538.225.1 affidavit because her claim is distinguishable from those in Jacobs in that her counterclaim charges false imprisonment, an intentional tort. Continuing, Windier asserts that it is not an element of her case that she show a duty and a breach of the standard of care that a reasonably prudent and careful health care provider would have provided under similar circumstances, but, instead, all she needs to prove is that St. John’s intentionally restrained her against her will.

We conclude that the foregoing argument flows from a misreading of Jacobs. In Jacobs plaintiff filed a multiple count petition naming a medical doctor and a registered nurse as defendants. In Counts I-IV, plaintiff sought damages from the physician on theories of tortious interference with contract, negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and prima facie tort. In Count IX, the plaintiff sought damages from the nurse on a negligence theory. In Count V plaintiff sought injunctive relief against the physician. All counts were dismissed by the trial court because of plaintiff’s failure to file the § 538.225.1 affidavit. The Eastern District affirmed the dismissal of Counts I-IV and IX, the damage counts, saying:

The legal question is whether the gravamen of plaintiff’s claims for damages consists of claims against Dr. Wolff and nurse Unser in their capacity as health care providers. Given the relationship of the parties and the true claim for damages relates to wrongful acts of a health care provider, we find § 538.225 RSMo 1986 applies regardless of the characterization of the claims by plaintiff.

Jacobs, 829 S.W.2d at 472[2].5 The court then examined the various allegations of plaintiff’s petition and concluded:

The gravamen of all plaintiff’s complaints, for which he seeks damages against Dr. Wolff and nurse Unser, are related to breaches of duty in rendering rehabilitative care. Plaintiff had no other relationship with Dr. Wolff or nurse Unser except for rehabilitation under the prescription of his cardiologist. Defendants’ activities at the rehabilitative cen[171]*171ter were related only to providing services to persons, including plaintiff, who required a form of health care.... On these facts § 538.225 applies.

829 S.W.2d at 473.

Under Jacobs, the elements of the cause of action do not fix conclusively whether the § 538.225.1 affidavit is required.6 Instead, Jacobs teaches, if a court determines that the relationship of the parties is that of health care provider and recipient and that the “true claim” relates only to the provision of health care services, then the health care affidavit is mandatory.

Here, the trial court made the determination that the health care relationship existed and Windier does not challenge that finding.7 Despite her characterization of her claim as false imprisonment, we conclude her “true claim” requires the affidavit, because the basis for the alleged false imprisonment was the incorrect — or totally absent — medical determination that she needed to be confined.8

Windier makes the additional argument that the § 538.225 affidavit requirement does not apply because her claim is not one for damages for personal injury; rather, it is a claim for damages for injury to her personal rights. See, e.g., Signorino v. National Super Markets, 782 S.W.2d 100

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St. John's Regional Health Center, Inc. v. Windler
847 S.W.2d 168 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1993)

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Bluebook (online)
847 S.W.2d 168, 1993 Mo. App. LEXIS 151, 1993 WL 20347, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/st-johns-regional-health-center-inc-v-windler-moctapp-1993.