THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA 

In The Supreme Court 

Amy Elizabeth Williams, as the Personal Representative 

of the Estate for deceased minor; and Amy Elizabeth 

Williams, individually, Plaintiffs, 

v. 

Quest Diagnostics, Inc., Athena Diagnostics, Inc., and 

ADI Holdings, Inc., Defendants. 

Appellate Case No. 2017-000787 

CERTIFIED QUESTION 

ON CERTIFICATION FROM THE UNITED STATES 

DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA 

Margaret B. Seymour, Senior United States District Judge 

Opinion No. 27818 

Heard February 14, 2018 – Filed June 27, 2018 

CERTIFIED QUESTION ANSWERED 

Bradford W. Cranshaw, Trevor M. Hughey, G. Robert 

DeLoach, III, Matthew M. McGuire, and James Ervin, all 

of Columbia, for Plaintiffs.

John C. Moylan, III, and Alice W. Parham Casey, both of 

Columbia, and Wallace K. Lightsey and Wade S. Kolb, 

III, both of Greenville, for Defendants. 
 

 

JUSTICE KITTREDGE: This Court accepted the following certified question 

from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina: 

Is a federally licensed genetic testing laboratory acting as a "licensed 

health care provider" as defined by S.C. Code Ann. § 38-79-410 

when, at the request of a patient's treating physician, the laboratory 

performs genetic testing to detect an existing disease or disorder? 

Answer: Yes. 

I. 

This wrongful death action arises from the death of a minor. The deceased was a 

young child experiencing seizures; the treating physician sent the child's DNA1

 to 

Defendants' genetic testing laboratory for the purpose of diagnosing the child's

disease or disorder. It is alleged the genetic testing laboratory failed to properly 

determine the child's condition. The child died, and this action followed. 

Defendants assert that the genetic testing laboratory is a "licensed health care 

provider" pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 38-79-410 (2015). Defendants further 

contend that Plaintiffs' claims concern medical malpractice, thereby rendering the 

medical malpractice statute of repose applicable.2 See S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-545 

1

 The common abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid.

2

 Plaintiffs expressed concern that the question before us may be premature and 

answering this certified question in the affirmative, as we do, may preclude other 

arguments in support of the case moving forward. We recognize this concern, but 

we believe it has been satisfactorily addressed by Defendants' concession at oral 

argument that Plaintiffs' other arguments remain viable, unaffected by answering 

the certified question in the affirmative. See Dawkins v. Union Hosp. Dist., 408 

S.C. 171, 177–78, 758 S.E.2d 501, 504 (2014) (internal citations omitted) ("[N]ot 

every injury sustained by a patient in a hospital [or by a licensed health care 

provider] results from medical malpractice" and "if the patient instead receives 

'nonmedical, administrative, ministerial, or routine care,' . . . the action instead 

sounds in ordinary negligence. . . . Thus, medical providers are still subject to 

claims sounding in ordinary negligence."). Therefore, we are merely answering 

the narrow question certified by the federal court. We leave the determination of 
 

(2005). A determination of the nature of Plaintiffs' claims (and the applicability of 

the medical malpractice statute of repose) is not before us, only the narrow 

question certified by the federal district court.

II. 

As defined in section 38-79-410, "'[l]icensed health care providers' means

physicians and surgeons; directors, officers, and trustees of hospitals; nurses; oral 

surgeons; dentists; pharmacists; chiropractors; optometrists; podiatrists; hospitals; 

nursing homes; or any similar category of licensed health care providers." 

(emphasis added). "Our primary function in interpreting a statute is to ascertain 

and give effect to the intention of the Legislature." Swanigan v. Am. Nat. Red 

Cross, 313 S.C. 416, 419, 438 S.E.2d 251, 252 (1993) (citing Wright v. Colleton 

Cty. Sch. Dist., 301 S.C. 282, 391 S.E.2d 564 (1990)). "When the Legislature uses 

words of particular and specific meaning followed by general words, the general 

words are construed to embrace only persons or things of the same general kind or 

class as those enumerated." Id. (citing State v. Patterson, 261 S.C. 362, 200 S.E.2d 

68 (1973)). 

Under this canon of statutory construction, a genetic testing laboratory that 

performs testing at the request of a patient's treating physician for the purpose of 

assisting the treating physician in detecting an existing disease or disorder falls 

within the definition of "licensed health care providers." Under these 

circumstances, the genetic testing laboratory is performing diagnostic testing at the 

request of a treating physician for the purpose of diagnosis and treatment, which is

a core function of hospitals in diagnosing and treating patients. See, e.g., S.C. 

Code Ann. § 15-79-110(4) (Supp. 2017) ("'Hospital' means a licensed facility with 

an organized medical staff to maintain and operate organized facilities and services 

to accommodate two or more nonrelated persons for the diagnosis, treatment, and 

care of such persons . . . ."); see also S.C. Code Ann. § 38-71-1920(7), (11), (12) 

(2015) (providing the definition of a health care provider as "an institution 

providing health care services"—"for the diagnosis, prevention, treatment, cure, or 

relief of a health condition, illness, injury, or disease"—"including, but not limited 

to, hospitals and . . . diagnostic, laboratory, and imaging centers" (emphasis 

added)). Under the circumstances presented, the genetic testing laboratory fits 

within the category provided by one of the specified designations in section 38-79-

410, a hospital. Thus, we conclude that a genetic testing laboratory in these 

whether the statute of repose applies to this case in the capable hands of the United 

States District Judge. 
 

circumstances clearly falls within section 38-79-410's catchall of "any similar 

category of licensed health care providers."

III. 

We answer the certified question in the affirmative—a genetic testing laboratory 

that performs genetic testing to detect an existing disease or disorder at the request 

of a patient's treating physician is acting as a "licensed health care provider" under 

S.C. Code Ann. § 38-79-410. 

CERTIFIED QUESTION ANSWERED. 

BEATTY, C.J., FEW and JAMES, JJ., concur. HEARN, J., dissenting in a

separate opinion. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

JUSTICE HEARN: Because I view the role played by Quest Diagnostics to be 

distinguishable from the health care providers enumerated in section 38-79-410, I 

respectfully dissent. The key commonality3 among the health care providers listed 

in the statute is that all function to provide direct, face-to-face treatment to patients, 

who in their own right conscientiously select these providers and rely on their skill, 

expertise, and professional judgment. These are individuals and institutions who 

make conclusive decisions about a patient's course of treatment. Although hospitals 

may contain in-house diagnostic laboratories, I do not believe that fact standing 

alone is dispositive of whether Quest falls within a similar category of health care 

provider. It is the hospital at the institutional level, taken as the sum of its working 

parts, which is covered by the statute––not its individual components. While Quest

may provide a medical service sometimes available at hospitals, the similarities end

there. I do not believe the limited, specialized services offered by Quest are 

sufficient to render it similar to hospitals, which are holistic enterprises offering a

multitude of medical services and treatment options. Therefore, I would answer the 

certified question, "No." 

3 Of course, the exception to this commonality are "directors, officers, and trustees 

of hospitals," but their role is sufficiently different from that of a third party 

diagnostic lab such that their inclusion does not render Quest a "similar category" of 

licensed health care provider. When one considers agency principles, it becomes 

clear why the General Assembly would include these individuals in the definition of 

a licensed health care provider in order to offer increased protections in light of the 

myriad litigation facing hospitals.