Title: Eagan v. Boyarsky

State: new-jersey

Issuer: New Jersey Supreme Court

Document:

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). GARIBALDI, J., writing for a unanimous Court. The main issue in this case, as in Lowe v. Zarghami, ___ N.J. ___ (1999), also decided today, is whether a clinical professor employed by the University of Medicine and Dentistry ( UMDNJ ) who practices medicine in a private hospital affiliated with UMDNJ is a public employee entitled to notice under the Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 to -14.4 ( TCA ) when an injured person seeks to file a claim against the doctor. In this case, the hospital with which UMDNJ had an affiliation agreement similar to that in Lowe was Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital ( RWJUH ), a private hospital that served as a teaching hospital for UMDNJ. UMDNJ's doctors who practice at RWJUH become members of RWJUH's medical staff in accordance with that hospital's rules and regulations. UMDNJ is entitled to twenty-five percent representation on the governing board of RWJUH and controls the committee that oversees, among other things, medical staff membership and performance. At the time of the alleged medical malpractice in this case, Dr.Andrew Boyarsky, one of the defendants, was Chief of Surgery at RWJUH and Chairman of the medical school's Department of Surgery. The person who sued Dr. Boyarsky, another UMDNJ clinical professor, and two UMDNJ medical residents was Thomas Eagan, who was referred by his primary care physician in a health maintenance organization (HMO) to Dr. Boyarsky and Dr. Mackenzie for treatment for a possible goiter. Dr. Boyarsky saw the patient at the HMO facility on numerous occasions and Dr. Mackenzie saw him at a RWJUH outpatient center. Eagan did not know that the doctors were anything other than private physicians to whom his HMO doctor had referred him. Following surgery performed on Eagan by the defendants on October 25, 1994, at RWJUH, it was determined that both of Eagan's recurrent laryngeal nerves had been severed during surgery and that as a result he suffered from bilateral vocal cord paralysis. Eagan retained an attorney to represent him in 1995, but changed attorneys in August 1996. The second attorney filed a medical malpractice complaint against the four doctors who had participated in the surgery and when the doctors answered the complaint, they asserted they were public employees entitled to a notice of claim under the TCA. Eagan then filed an amended complaint against his first attorney alleging legal malpractice. The trial court granted the doctors' motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to provide notice, and then reinstated the complaint against Drs. Boyarsky and Mackenzie after the Appellate Division held in Lowe that UMDNJ clinical staff were independent contractors for whom no notice of claim was required. The court let stand the dismissal as to the two residents based on another case holding UMDNJ residents to be public employees. The doctors filed an unsuccessful motion for leave to appeal to the Appellate Division. The Supreme Court granted leave to appeal. HELD: UMDNJ faculty members practicing in affiliated hospitals are public employees to whom the notice provisions of the Tort Claims Act apply. Under the unique facts in this case, the one-year time bar for filing a notice of late claim is tolled to permit plaintiff to file his claim. 1. The medical treatment at issue took place while Drs. Boyarsky and Mackenzie were attempting to fulfill the goals of the faculty practice plan. Like the doctor in Lowe, they were wholly economically dependent on UMDNJ. Applying the relative nature of the work test to the employment of these clinical professors, the Court concludes that because of the economic dependence and the significance of the doctors' work to UMDNJ's business, the doctors are public employees. ( pp.9-11) 2. Eagan had even fewer reasons than Lowe to suspect his doctors were UMDNJ professors or public employees. He did not learn they were public employees until seventeen months after his claim accrued and no doubt believed his late notice of claim would be barred by statute. He promptly filed a malpractice claim against his first attorney. Eagan had consulted that attorney within six months after the accrual of the medical malpractice claim. Like Lowe and the plaintiffs in earlier cases who were unable to learn the true identity of public property owners, he pursued his claim diligently and was thwarted in his action because the employment status of his doctors was obscured. In the unique circumstances of this case , the Court finds that the Legislature intended the one-year time bar of N.J.S.A. 59:8-9 to be tolled and permits Eagan to file a notice of late claim. Neither the doctors nor UMDNJ will be prejudiced. ( pp.11-16) 3. Together with the decisions in this case and in Lowe, the Court's requirement that in the future UMDNJ direct its clinical professors to inform patients orally and in writing that they are UMDNJ employees should make patients aware that their UMDNJ doctors are public employees entitled to notice under the TCA. ( pp. 16-17) The judgment of the Law Division is REVERSED and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES POLLOCK, O'HERN, STEIN and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE GARIBALDI's opinion. JUSTICE HANDLER did not participate. THOMAS A. EAGAN and BERNADETTE T. EAGAN, husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. ANDREW H. BOYARSKY, M.D. and JAMES MACKENZIE, M.D., Defendants-Appellants, and LISA BENTON, M.D., JOSEPH HEETHER, M.D. and JOHN DOE, ESQUIRE I-III (a fictitious name designating legal counsel), Defendants, and BERNARD A. CAMPBELL, JR., ESQUIRE and DESTRIBATS, CAMPBELL, DESANTIS & MAGEE, Defendants-Respondents. Argued November 30, 1998 -- Decided June 7,1999 On appeal from the Superior Court, Law Division, Middlesex County. Louis A. Ruprecht argued the cause for appellants (Ruprecht, Hart & Weeks, attorneys, Mr. Ruprecht, Adele C. Baker and David F. Soltero,, on the brief). Robert J. Pollan argued the cause for respondents Thomas A. Eagan and Bernadette T. Eagan (Haymond & Lundy, attorneys). I. Blakeley Johnston, III, argued the cause for respondents Bernard A. Campbell, Jr., and Destribats, Campbell, DeStantis & Magee Johnstone, Skok, Loughlin & Lane, attorneys, John Bensulock, on the brief). The opinion of the Court was delivered by GARIBALDI, J. The basic issue in this case, as in Lowe v. Zarghami, ____ N.J. ____ (1999), also decided today, is whether a clinical professor employed by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey ("UMDNJ"), who practices medicine in a UMDNJ affiliated private hospital, is a public employee entitled to notice under the Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 to 14.4 ("TCA"). We again conclude that UMDNJ faculty physicians practicing in affiliated private hospitals are public employees for the purposes of the Tort Claims Act. In Zwirn v. County of Hudson, 137 N.J. Super. 99 (Law Div. 1975), plaintiff's counsel was misled unintentionally by county police officers about the ownership of the road where plaintiff's accident occurred. Id. at 101. Finding that the belief of plaintiff's counsel was reasonable, though mistaken, because county police officers had advised him it was a county road and because the death involved an accident that was exhaustively investigated by the county police and county prosecutor, the court found that plaintiff had sufficient reasons to file a late notice of claim with the State. Id. at 104-05. In Dambro v. Union Cty. Park Comm., 130 N.J. Super. 450 (Law Div. 1974), the plaintiff's counsel sent a letter to the borough tax assessor describing the accident and requesting that he be informed about the owner of the property where plaintiff's accident occurred. Id. at 453. The tax assessor wrote back indicating that the property was owned by the County Park Commission. Ibid. It was only after plaintiff was served with the Commission's third-party complaint that he learned that Watchung owned the premises either in whole or in part. Ibid. Watchung moved to dismiss, but the court held that plaintiff had substantially complied with N.J.S.A. 59:8-4 and 59:8-7 and that the borough was estopped from relying on the notice provision because the tax assessor had made a good faith mistake that misled the plaintiff's counsel concerning the borough's ownership. Id. at 457. Plaintiff sought prompt medical treatment. He contacted an attorney within six months of the accrual of his claim. There is no evidence supporting the conclusion that plaintiff knew defendants were UMDNJ employees. Indeed, plaintiff had no reason to suspect that his doctors were even associated with a public entity. He followed the procedures necessary to claim medical malpractice against a physician in ordinary circumstances. Like the plaintiffs in Feinberg v. State D.E.P., 137 N.J. 126 (1994); Zwirn v. County of Hudson, 137 N.J. Super. 99 (Law Div. 1975); and Dambo v. Union City Park Comm., 130 N.J. Super. 450 (Law Div. 1974), he diligently pursued his claim. Like those plaintiffs he was thwarted in his action because the employment status of his doctors was obscured. We do not think that the Legislature contemplated that the one-year ban would be used to bar a plaintiff-patient from pursuing his medical malpractice claim against a physician whom he had no reason to believe was a public employee. In such unique circumstances, we find that the Legislature intended the one-year ban provided under N.J.S.A. 59:8-9 to be tolled. Accordingly, plaintiff should be entitled to file a notice of late claim. Moreover, a late notice of claim would not prejudice either the doctors or UMDNJ. Because the doctors are required to keep medical records in the ordinary course of treating patients, investigation of plaintiff's claim is not hindered by the delay in filing notice. Furthermore, the doctors must have been aware of the possibility of a malpractice suit, given plaintiff's repeated treatments and Dr. Boyarsky's report in which he documented that plaintiff's right recurrent laryngeal nerve "may have been severed." As we stated in Lowe, supra, ___ N.J. at ___ (slip op. at 33), to make patients aware of their physician's employment status and to avoid this problem in the future, UMDNJ must require clinical professors employed by them to advise their patients, both orally and in writing, that they are employees of UMDNJ. Such notice should be given to a patient as soon as practicable. It also would be helpful if clinical professors wore badges identifying themselves as UMDNJ employees. Those steps, if taken together with this holding that clinical professors are UMDNJ employees, should make patients aware that their physicians are public employees entitled to notice under the TCA. The judgment of the Law Division is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES POLLOCK, O'HERN, STEIN, and COLEMAN join in JUSTICE GARIBALDI's opinion. JUSTICE HANDLER did not participate. NO. A-193 THOMAS A. EAGAN and BERNADETTE T. EAGAN, husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. ANDREW H. BOYARSKY, M.D. and JAMES MACKENZIE, M.D., Defendants-Appellants, and LISA BENTON, M.D., JOSEPH HEETHER, M.D. and JOHN DOE, ESQUIRE I-III (a fictitious name designating legal counsel), Defendants, and BERNARD A. CAMPBELL, JR., ESQUIRE and DESTRIBATS, CAMPBELL, DESANTIS & MAGEE, Defendants-Respondents. DECIDED