In its March 27, 2025 Opinion, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court stated: “Although the statute of repose bars medical malpractice causes of action based on negligent acts or omissions that occurred more than seven years before the commencement of the action, it does not shield later negligent acts, so long as the medical malpractice claim is not predicated on any acts or omissions that took place more than seven years before the filing of the claim.”
In the Massachusetts medical malpractice case it was deciding, the decedent had an EKG at Cape Cod Hospital on December 8, 2006, in preparation for lumbar disc surgery. The EKG was abnormal, and the notes on the EKG report indicated “possible ectopic atrial rhythm.” On December 13, 2006, the decedent had an appointment at Dr. Moore’s office, where he was cleared for the upcoming surgery. The decedent was also prescribed antihypertensive medication at that appointment, due to high blood pressure. Over the next almost ten years, the decedent saw Dr. Moore regularly, for at least twelve appointments. Dr. Moore did not order cardiac testing at any of those appointments. The
decedent died on June 12, 2016. Autopsy findings indicated that the cause of death was cardiac arrythmia.
The plaintiff thereafter filed a Massachusetts wrongful death medical malpractice lawsuit in December 2017, claiming that Dr. Moore was negligent in his medical treatment of the decedent. The plaintiff’s medical expert wrote in his report, “Dr. Moore’s care of the decedent “deviated from common accepted practice and fell below the standard of care expected of the average qualified doctor because he never followed up on the abnormal EKG in 2006 . . . .
In addition, in the ensuing [ten] years of caring for [the decedent], Dr. Moore never ordered another EKG for this patient with hypertension.”
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court stated: “We have also explained that continuing treatment alone does
not toll the statute of repose time period … Negligent acts or omissions within the seven-year period causing injury
may be the basis of a malpractice action. Prior negligence that occurs outside of the repose period does not shield later negligence if such later negligence can be found to cause an injury. This is so even if a patient’s treatment happens to involve the same illness, or disease, so long as the malpractice claim is not predicated on an act or omission that took place outside of the repose period … Each appointment, in other words, in the plaintiff’s view, constituted negligence and thus its own “definitely established event” from which the repose period started to run. Based on this record, we conclude that there is a genuine issue of disputed fact whether Dr. Moore’s treatment of the decedent was negligent without relying on the abnormal EKG done in 2006, and whether such later negligence could be found to have caused his death.”
“There is testimony from the plaintiff’s expert, Dr. Pels, that even if the 2006 EKG had been normal, the decedent’s
underlying risk factors warranted a follow-up EKG. In other words, regardless of the 2006 EKG, at each of the decedent’s appointments with Dr. Moore, Dr. Moore failed to provide the care warranted by the decedent’s health and risk factors … The plaintiff thus adduced evidence that at each of the decedent’s appointments, Dr. Moore failed to
meet the standard of care because he failed to provide relevant cardiac treatment for the decedent, not because of the abnormal EKG but because, again, of the decedent’s presentation at those appointments.”
Source Bellmar v. Moore, SJC-13643.
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