Title: Ternes v. Galichia

State: kansas

Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court

Document:

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS 
 
No. 101,666 
 
HERMAN M. TERNES, 
Appellee, 
 
v. 
 
JOSEPH P. GALICHIA, M.D., 
Appellee, 
 
and 
 
ACCIDENT RECOVERY TEAM, P.A., and  
JAMES A. CLINE, 
Intervenors/Appellants. 
 
 
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 
 
 
1. 
 
Standing is a component of subject matter jurisdiction. As a jurisdictional issue, 
standing may be raised at any time and by the court on its own motion. 
 
2. 
 
The existence of standing is a question of law over which an appellate court 
exercises unlimited review. 
 
3. 
 
In order to establish standing, a plaintiff must present an injury that is concrete, 
particularized, and actual or imminent; the injury must be fairly traceable to the opposing 
party's challenged action; and the injury must be redressable by a favorable ruling. 
 
 
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4. 
 
A corollary of standing is that the opposing party must have an ongoing interest in 
the dispute sufficient to establish concrete adverseness. 
 
5. 
 
Whether a sufficient interest exists to establish standing is a highly fact-specific 
determination. 
 
6. 
 
In order to achieve standing, a party generally must assert its own legal rights and 
interests and may not base its claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third 
parties. 
 
7. 
 
In order to obtain appellate jurisdiction, when the original plaintiff in an action 
declines to take an appeal from an adverse ruling and the only party seeking appellate 
review is an intervenor, the intervenor must be able to demonstrate that it would have 
standing independent of the original plaintiff to prosecute the action.  
 
Review of the judgment of the Court of Appeals in 43 Kan. App. 2d 857, 234 P.3d 820 (2010). 
Appeal from Sedgwick District Court; WARREN M. WILBERT, judge. Opinion filed July 26, 2013. The 
appeal is dismissed. The judgment of the Court of Appeals reversing the district court is vacated.  
 
Todd E. Shadid, of Klenda, Mitchell, Austerman & Zuercher, L.L.C., of Wichita, argued the 
cause, and Christopher A. McElgunn, of the same firm, was on the briefs for appellants.  
 
Lisa A. McPherson, of Martin, Pringle, Oliver, Wallace & Bauer, L.L.P., of Wichita, argued the 
cause, and Marcia A. Wood, of the same firm, was with her on the briefs for appellee Joseph P. Galichia, 
M.D. 
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The opinion of the court was delivered by 
 
ROSEN, J.:  In this procedurally complicated medical malpractice action, issues of 
standing and the application of a statute of limitations defense are raised by the 
intervening attorneys, who are also defendants in a separate, but related, legal malpractice 
action. The Court of Appeals reversed the district court and remanded for a trial, and this 
court granted review. 
 
The plaintiff in this action, Herman M. Ternes, was injured on March 5, 2004, in 
the course of surgery performed by Joseph P. Galichia, M.D. On February 9, 2005, 
Ternes sought legal advice from James A. Cline of Accident Recovery Team, P.A. On 
March 3, 2006, 2 days before the expiration of the statute of limitations, Cline filed suit 
on behalf of Ternes against Galichia and the Galichia Medical Group, P.A. Cline 
delegated the responsibility of obtaining service on Galichia to a paralegal, who failed to 
achieve proper service. 
 
On June 28, 2006, Galichia and Ternes filed a joint request for a screening panel 
under K.S.A. 60-3502, and on September 27, 2006, Galichia designated his screening 
panel member. On October 19, 2006, Galichia sent a letter to Ternes' counsel stating that 
he had not received Ternes' screening panel designation. Receiving no answer, Galichia 
sent a second letter on November 9, 2006, requesting Ternes' designation. Then, on 
November 28, 2006, Galichia's original counsel withdrew, and new counsel entered an 
appearance on his behalf. 
 
On July 23, 2007, Galichia filed a motion to dismiss the screening panel action 
based on Ternes' failure to prosecute the action in a timely manner. The district court 
granted the motion without prejudice on August 13, 2007. Then, on January 2, 2008, the 
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district court granted Ternes' motion, filed through Cline, to dismiss the underlying 
malpractice action without prejudice.  
 
On May 23, 2008, Ternes filed through different counsel a new lawsuit with a new 
district court case number seeking damages against Galichia. On August 13, 2008, 
Galichia filed a motion to dismiss, asserting a statute of limitations defense.  
 
On August 29, 2008, Cline and Accident Recovery Team filed a motion to 
intervene. In the motion, they averred that Ternes had informed them that he did not 
intend to oppose Galichia's motion to dismiss. The sole purpose of the proposed 
intervention was to oppose the motion to dismiss. The district court conducted a hearing 
on the motions and granted the motion to intervene under K.S.A. 60-224(a)(2).  
 
On September 5, 2008, the district court granted Galichia's motion to dismiss 
based on an expired statute of limitations. Cline and Accident Recovery Team filed a 
timely notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals. 
 
Galichia filed two motions before the Court of Appeals seeking dismissal of the 
appeal on jurisdictional or standing grounds. The Court of Appeals denied both motions 
without comment. Ternes elected not to file briefs in the Court of Appeals. Following 
oral argument, the Court of Appeals reversed the district court and remanded for further 
proceedings. Ternes v. Galichia, 43 Kan. App. 2d 857, 234 P.3d 820 (2010). The 
intervenors appealed and this court granted review. Because we find that Cline and 
Accident Recovery Team have no standing in this matter and should not have been 
allowed to intervene, we are without jurisdiction to reach the issue of whether the 
medical malpractice action was time-barred.  
 
 
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Standing to Intervene 
 
A threshold question in this appeal is whether the appellant lawyers were properly 
allowed to intervene to oppose the defendant physician's motion to dismiss. This case 
presents a curious take on the question of standing. The intervenors essentially intervened 
as plaintiffs:  they seek to compel Ternes to proceed with his litigation against Galichia, 
even though the intervenors suffered no harm from the actions of that defendant. 
 
The Court of Appeals held that intervention was proper. 43 Kan. App. 2d at 861. 
We take up the question of standing to intervene and disagree with both the district court 
and the Court of Appeals in their conclusions that Cline and Accident Recovery Team 
met standing requirements in either the district court or on appeal. 
 
K.S.A. 2012 Supp. 60-224(a)(2) requires a court to permit intervention by any 
party who "claims an interest relating to the property or transaction that is the subject of 
the action, and is so situated that disposing of the action may as a practical matter 
substantially impair or impede the movant's ability to protect its interest, unless existing 
parties adequately represent that interest." 
 
The Kansas intervention statute is patterned after Rule 24(a)(2) of the Federal 
Rules of Civil Procedure. Federal decisions interpreting Rule 24 may serve as persuasive 
guidance for interpreting and applying Kansas procedural statutes. See Aeroflex Wichita, 
Inc. v. Filardo, 294 Kan. 258, 264, 275 P.3d 869 (2012).  
 
Standing is a component of subject matter jurisdiction. State v. Ernesti, 291 Kan. 
54, 60, 239 P.3d 40 (2010). As a jurisdictional question, standing requires a court to 
determine whether a party has alleged a sufficient personal stake in the outcome of the 
controversy to invoke jurisdiction and to justify the court exercising its remedial powers 
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on the party's behalf. Because standing implicates the court's jurisdiction to hear a case, 
the existence of standing is a question of law over which this court exercises unlimited 
review. Cochran v. Kansas Dept. of Agriculture, 291 Kan. 898, 903, 249 P.3d 434 
(2011). Because standing is a jurisdictional issue, it may be raised at any time and on an 
appellate court's own motion. Vorhees v. Baltazar, 283 Kan. 389, 397, 153 P.3d 1227 
(2007).  
 
The appellant lawyers must demonstrate standing both to intervene and to appeal. 
In order to establish standing, a party must present an injury that is concrete, 
particularized, and actual or imminent; the injury must be fairly traceable to the opposing 
party's challenged action; and the injury must be redressable by a favorable ruling. See 
Horne v. Flores, 557 U.S. 433, 445, 129 S. Ct. 2579, 174 L. Ed. 2d 406 (2009). A 
corollary of standing is that the opposing party must have an ongoing interest in the 
dispute sufficient to establish concrete adverseness. See Bond v. United States, 564 U.S. 
___, 131 S. Ct. 2355, 2361, 180 L. Ed. 2d 269 (2011). 
 
The determination of whether a sufficient interest exists to establish standing is 
highly fact-specific. See, e.g., Security Ins. Co. of Hartford v. Schipporeit, 69 F.3d 1377, 
1381 (7th Cir. 1995). Courts have pointedly avoided making definitive rules governing 
sufficiency of the interest. See, e.g., Reich v. ABC/York-Estes Corp., 64 F.3d 316, 322 
(7th Cir. 1995) (something more than a mere "betting" interest); United States v. City of 
Chicago, 870 F.2d 1256, 1260 (7th Cir. 1989) (interest is less than a property right). 
 
The intervenors in this case did not become subject to a burden on their property 
rights and were not subjected to the imposition of some burden or obligation or the denial 
of some personal or property rights when the district court dismissed Ternes' case. See 
Fairfax Drainage District v. City of Kansas City, 190 Kan. 308, 315, 374 P.2d 35 (1962). 
The intervenors may be disadvantaged by such a ruling, but the enforcement of their 
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rights is the subject of a separate lawsuit. Because Cline and Accident Recovery Team 
did not suffer an injury from any action on the part of the defendant, they have no injury 
that is redressable by a favorable ruling against the defendant.  
 
A party generally must assert its own legal rights and interests and may not base 
its claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties. See Kowalski v. Tesmer, 
543 U.S. 125, 129, 125 S. Ct. 564, 160 L. Ed. 2d 519 (2004). The only legal interest that 
the intervenors have in the present action is the speculative effect of this action on an 
independent lawsuit; the defendant in the present lawsuit is not a party to that litigation. 
 
In United States v. Texas Eastern Transmission Corp., 923 F.2d 410, 414 (5th Cir. 
1991), the court held that a theoretical impairment of an interest is insufficient to satisfy 
statutory requirements. The court noted that the possibility that a party might have to 
respond to a questionable argument in a subsequent action is not a sufficiently practical 
impairment of that party's interest in protecting its interests to warrant intervention.  
 
In Southmark Corp. v. Cagan, 950 F.2d 416, 418-19 (7th Cir. 1991), the court held 
that the interest of an investor in a real estate partnership, who had only a potential 
unliquidated tort claim against the partnership, would not be impaired by the disposition 
of a foreclosure action against the partnership's real interest. The investor had already 
filed her own action, which would provide an opportunity to protect her interests. 
 
In In re Rothstein, Rosenfeldt Adler, P.A., No. 09-34791-BKC-RBR, 2010 WL 
1740706 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2010) (unpublished opinion), prospective intervenors sought 
to intervene in a bankruptcy action to preserve liability insurance coverage that would be 
a primary source of recovery in state court actions. The court denied intervention, finding 
the intervenors' interests to be purely economic and speculative, as it was not known at 
the time whether they would prevail in their state court action. The court noted that an 
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intervenor's interest must be one that the substantive law recognizes as belonging to or 
being owned by the applicant, and a legally protectable interest is an interest that derives 
from a legal right. In re Rothstein, 2010 WL 1740706, at *1. 
 
In the present case, the intervenors cannot assert a legal right to the litigation 
taking place between Ternes and the provider of his medical services. They could not 
have joined as plaintiffs when the suit was originally filed, and they cannot recover any 
compensation from the defendants. The intervenors' interest in this litigation is not direct, 
concrete, particularized, or actual or imminent.  
 
The intervenors attempt to analogize their status to that of insurance companies 
seeking to intervene to protect their rights in automobile negligence actions. See, e.g., 
Chamberlain v. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 36 Kan. App. 2d 163, 172, 137 P.3d 1081, 
rev. denied 282 Kan. 788 (2006); Barlett v. CNA, 33 Kan. App. 2d 519, 523-24, 104 P.3d 
1011, rev. denied 279 Kan. 1005 (2005) (insurance carrier that fails to intervene in tort 
action is precluded from later challenging court-approved settlement).   
 
This analogy is inapt. Insurance companies have contractual obligations to pay 
judgments and court-approved settlements and have no independent means to contest 
those payments. In the present case, however, a judgment against the plaintiff in itself 
creates no legal obligation among the parties. Any compensatory award against the 
intervenors is speculative and can only result from a judgment in a separate lawsuit, a 
lawsuit in which the intervenors may defend themselves and in which they may 
independently prevail. If the medical malpractice action had proceeded to trial, Cline and 
Accident Recovery Team would have played no role in the proceedings:  they could 
scarcely have asserted an interest as injured plaintiffs, and they would have been at most 
curious bystanders. Their eventual intervention as advocates for the plaintiff arose from 
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their adversarial relationship with the plaintiff, not out of any coincidence of interests 
with the plaintiff. 
 
Furthermore, even if Cline and Accident Recovery Team had properly been 
admitted as intervenors below, their lack of standing to assert an independent plaintiff's 
malpractice action would deprive them of standing to take this appeal. When the original 
plaintiff declines to take an appeal and the only party seeking appellate review is an 
intervenor, the intervenor must be able to demonstrate independent standing to prosecute 
the action. See Diamond v. Charles, 476 U.S. 54, 68, 106 S. Ct. 1697, 90 L. Ed. 2d 48 
(1986).  
 
Professors Wright, Miller, and Cooper state that it is a "basic proposition" that "a 
plaintiff who lacks standing to bring suit cannot require an appellate court to decide on 
the merits." 15A Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3902, p. 61 
(2d ed. 1992). They point out that "[t]he rule against advancing the rights of others has 
been followed even in circumstances in which disposition of a claim between other 
parties may have had a significant effect on the appellant." 15A Wright, Miller & Cooper, 
Federal Practice and Procedure § 3902, pp. 71-72; see Evanston Ins. Co. v. Fred A. 
Tucker & Co., Inc., 872 F.2d 278, 280 (9th Cir. 1989); Aubin v. Fudala, 782 F.2d 280, 
285 (1st Cir. 1983). 
 
This rule is sensible in that it prevents the creation of an "empty" lawsuit, in which 
an intervenor-plaintiff could prevail on appeal but could not pursue any claim on remand. 
This is, of course, the possible outcome in the present case if this court were to concede 
standing to the appellants and were to affirm the decision by the Court of Appeals. 
 
Because Cline and Accident Recovery Team lacked standing to intervene in 
district court and lacked standing to take this appeal, the appeal is dismissed. The 
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remaining procedural issues brought by the appellants are moot. The decision of the 
Court of Appeals reversing the district court is vacated.