The State of Michigan Court of Appeals (“Michigan Appellate Court”) held in its Per Curiam unpublished Opinion dated June 16, 2022 that the plaintiff’s claim involving the alleged failure of hospital staff to monitor him while he was in the bathroom when they knew he was a fall risk is not a claim for ordinary negligence but rather a claim for medical malpractice, requiring the plaintiff to comply with Michigan medical malpractice laws.
The plaintiff filed a complaint against the defendant hospital in which he claimed he struck his head during the fall and suffered a subdural hematoma and subarachnoid hemorrhage. The plaintiff asserted that the defendant committed malpractice by leaving him unattended in the bathroom, resulting in his head injury. The plaintiff subsequently amended his complaint to assert a claim of ordinary negligence in addition to the medical malpractice claim. The defendant moved for summary disposition of the plaintiff’s ordinary negligence claim, arguing that resolving plaintiff’s allegations required consideration of medical judgment and, thus, sounding exclusively in medical malpractice.
In order to determine whether a claim sounds in medical malpractice on the one hand, or ordinary negligence on the other, courts must evaluate two factors: (1) whether the claim pertains to an action that occurred within the course of a professional relationship; and (2) whether the claim raises questions of medical judgment beyond the realm of common knowledge and experience. The failure to exercise medical judgment is understood as the failure of a member of the medical profession, employed to treat a case professionally, to fulfill the duty to exercise that degree of skill, care and diligence exercised by members of the same profession, practicing in the same or similar.
The Michigan Appellate Court held: “In contrast to the plaintiff in In re Kilburn, who was unsteady and left on her feet during a medical procedure, plaintiff here was safely escorted to and seated on the toilet and instructed to stay seated until he was finished and he could be helped up. In other words, while the failure to take any preventative action with an unsteady patient may sound in ordinary negligence under In re Kilburn, the reasonableness of precautionary measures actually taken by medical staff sound under medical malpractice. Thus, unlike the plaintiff in In re Kilburn, plaintiff was not left in risk of imminent harm from a known danger. Because plaintiff’s allegations sound in medical malpractice, the trial court erred when it denied defendant’s motion for partial summary disposition.”
Source Moore v. Beaumont Hospital-Dearborn, COA 356788.
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