On February 18, 2017, Crossnoe arrived at Henry Ford Health System’s Chesterfield urgent care clinic, complaining of sudden difficulty breathing. Dr. Reinheimer evaluated and treated Crossnoe. Dr. Reinheimer found that he suffered from a cough, shortness of breath, wheezing, and a runny nose. Dr. Reinheimer documented that Crossnoe was “in respiratory distress,” with a history of pneumonia and chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (COPD), and diagnosed him with an acute exacerbation of COPD.
Dr. Reinheimer then prescribed steroids and antibiotics before discharging him. Crossnoe returned home, and during the early hours of February 19, 2017, suffered from respiratory arrest and could not be awakened. He was taken to
the hospital by ambulance and pronounced dead soon after.
Plaintiff, Crossnoe’s wife and personal representative of his estate, filed her Michigan medical malpractice lawsuit
alleging that Dr. Reinheimer was professionally negligent in his treatment of Crossnoe, and that this negligence was a proximate cause of Crossnoe’s death. The Michigan medical malpractice complaint specifically alleged that Dr. Reinheimer was “board certified in Allergy and Immunology and Pediatrics, working in an Urgent Care setting,
practicing emergency medicine . . . .” In support of her complaint, and in accordance with MCL 600.2912d, plaintiff filed an AOM signed by Dr. Purcell. Dr. Purcell’s affidavit stated that “during the relevant time period at issue in this matter, I was a licensed and practicing physician, specializing in Emergency Medicine and devoting a majority of my professional time, for the preceding year, in an Emergency Medicine/Urgent Care setting . . . .”
Defendants moved for summary disposition, arguing that plaintiff’s AOM was defective because Dr. Purcell’s board certification in emergency medicine did not match Dr. Reinheimer’s board certifications. Therefore, defendants contended, Dr. Purcell was not qualified to offer testimony on the applicable standard of care. Plaintiff responded that Dr. Reinheimer was practicing emergency medicine at the time of the alleged malpractice, therefore making emergency medicine the one most relevant specialty and qualifying Dr. Purcell to offer his expert opinion. Furthermore, noting that a plaintiff’s attorney must only have a reasonable belief that the physician signing the AOM was qualified, plaintiff argued that it was reasonable to believe that Dr. Purcell was qualified to sign the AOM considering the circumstances of Crossnoe’s treatment.
The trial court concluded that emergency medicine was not the appropriate standard of care. The court never expressly determined whether plaintiff’s counsel could have reasonably believed that Dr. Purcell was qualified to sign the AOM, but the court gave plaintiff 60 days to provide an amended AOM signed by a specialist in allergy and immunology. After plaintiff failed to do so, the trial court dismissed her claims with prejudice. The plaintiff appealed.
The State of Michigan Court of Appeals (“Michigan Appellate Court”) stated in its unpublished Per Curiam opinion dated October 19, 2023: “Because defendants established that Dr. Reinheimer was practicing within his board-certified specialty of allergy and immunology during the course of the alleged malpractice, the trial court did not err by determining that emergency medicine was not the appropriate standard of care … Dr. Reinheimer was board-certified in allergy and immunology and practicing within that specialty at the time of the alleged malpractice, so allergy and immunology was the one most relevant standard of care. See Woodard, 476 Mich at 560. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it concluded that Dr. Purcell was not qualified to offer expert testimony on the applicable standard of care.”
The Michigan Appellate Court continued: “At the AOM stage, we must consider whether plaintiff’s attorney could have reasonably believed that Dr. Purcell was a qualified expert witness under MCL 600.2169 … we conclude that counsel could have reasonably believed that Dr. Purcell met the requirements for an expert witness under MCL 600.2169. When Dr. Purcell prepared his affidavit, the resources available to plaintiff’s counsel included the facts surrounding Crossnoe’s visit to the urgent care clinic and relevant Michigan case law, such as Woodard and Jilek II. We are persuaded that counsel’s belief was reasonable because Woodard and Jilek II are difficult to reconcile and because the facts of Crossnoe’s urgent care visit reasonably relate to the practice of an emergency medicine specialist … In this case, plaintiff argues that her attorney reasonably believed that Dr. Reinheimer was practicing emergency medicine—and not allergy and immunology—during the alleged malpractice. While defendants presented evidence on summary disposition that Dr. Reinheimer was practicing allergy and immunology, it was not unreasonable, at the time plaintiff’s counsel obtained the AOM, to believe that Dr. Reinheimer was engaged in the specialty of emergency medicine … With the limited information that plaintiff’s counsel possessed at the time, the decision to enlist Dr. Purcell to sign the AOM was a reasonable one that fell within the “considerable leeway” given to selecting an expert witness upon the filing of a complaint.”
Source Crossnoe v. Henry Ford Health System, COA 359650.
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