AP Features, September 5th, 2007
The state Supreme Court on Wednesday removed a potential hurdle to lawsuits alleging that hospitals lacked adequate evacuation plans before Hurricane Katrina, ruling that they should not be handled as medical malpractice claims.
The 4-3 ruling means that the case of Althea LaCoste, and possibly hundreds of similar cases, won't need to detour through state review panels before trials can be scheduled. Reviews needed for malpractice suits can take as long as a year.
The ruling also could lead to more money for plaintiffs. Louisiana has a $500,000 limit on malpractice awards but none in liability lawsuits.
The decision reverses an appeals court ruling that said such claims amount to malpractice because they involve decisions affecting patient care. Attorneys involved in the case, however, noted that a judge still could find hospitals liable for malpractice after a trial.
LaCoste walked into Methodist Hospital with her portable ventilator on Aug. 28, 2005, one day before Katrina struck. She died before rescuers could reach the flooded, powerless building in eastern New Orleans.
Her sons, Stephen and Neal, contend that general negligence law applies to the case, not malpractice law.
The majority of the court agreed.
A lack of any evacuation plan at all or failure to make sure a building is safe from floods "is not 'treatment related' or the result of a dereliction of professional medical skill," Chief Justice Pascal Calogero wrote.
Calogero also noted that no doctor, nurse or other health care provider was accused of anything, and that "the hospital's decisions affected all persons present in the hospital whether employee, patient or visitor."
Justice Jeanette Knoll said in the dissenting opinion that the case should be heard as a malpractice claim.
"Clearly and most telling, Mrs. LaCoste died from the condition for which she was admitted because of lack of treatment and not because she suffered from any independent injury," Knoll wrote.
The ruling could affect as many as 194 claims filed with the Louisiana Patients Compensation Fund Oversight Board, which manages malpractice suits, said the board's executive director, Lorraine LeBlanc. She said she did not know the number of lawsuits that might have been filed by people who did not file claims with the board.
It has been estimated that 140 patients at New Orleans-area hospitals and nursing homes died in Katrina and its aftermath.
The hospital wanted the suit to go through malpractice proceedings, but the oversight board said the claims were not malpractice. Attorneys for both sides noted that the high court, in a footnote on the decision, said the trial court will eventually decide whether the case is one of medical malpractice or negligence.
"It seems like a victory for the plaintiffs, but it could easily be taken away at trial," oversight board attorney David Woolridge said.
David Bowling, an attorney for Universal Health Services Inc., the owner of Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital, said the hospital did not put on evidence during a hearing on which law should apply, believing the Supreme Court would rule it malpractice. He said his reading of the decision was that it would not necessarily cover all similar claims, but "some people may disagree with that."
A message was left for an attorney for LaCoste's family.
