Opinion ID: 1666464
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Action for Article 2315.6 Damages under Medical Malpractice Act

Text: The outset complaint to this court by defendants and amici relates to the holding by the court of appeal that this is not a medical malpractice action. The intermediate court made that ruling in the context of its determination that the trial judge erred when he instructed the jury on La.Rev.Stat. 9:2794 pertaining to the required elements of proof and the burden of proof in a medical malpractice action. Reasoning that plaintiffs were not patients of the defendant doctor and were not parties to a health care contract, the court held that the Medical Malpractice Act does not apply to an action by a third party for the mental anguish damages resulting from a patient's injury or death caused by the negligence of the patient's heath care provider. We disagree. The cause of action for damages resulting from an injury to or death of a patient caused by a doctor is provided by Civil Code Articles 2315, 2315.1 and 2315.2. The Medical Malpractice Act simply provides procedures for and limitations on such causes of action when the doctor is a qualified health care provider. Similarly, Article 2315.6 provides a cause of action to specified persons for mental anguish damages resulting from an injury to or death of a patient caused by a doctor, subject to the procedures and limitations of the Medical Malpractice Act, when the specified relatives of the patient incur the mental anguish within the circumstances outlined in Article 2315.6. The Act defines malpractice as follows: Malpractice means any unintentional tort or any breach of contract based on health care or professional services rendered, or which should have been rendered, by a health care provider, to a patient, including failure to render services timely and the handling of a patient, including loading and unloading of a patient, and also includes all legal responsibility of a health care provider arising from defects in blood, tissue, transplants, drugs and medicines, or from defects in or failures of prosthetic devices, implanted in or used on or in the person of a patient. La.Rev.Stat. 40:1299.41 A(8) (emphasis added). The conduct complained of in the present case was an unintentional tort arising out of a qualified health care provider's failure to render professional services which should have been rendered to a patient. Each of the patient's parents was a person having a claim under this Part for bodily injuries to or death of a patient on account of malpractice.... La.Rev.Stat. 40:1299.41 E(1). In Hutchinson v. Patel, 637 So.2d 415, 428 (La.1994), a case in which a health care provider committed a tort against a person who was not his patient, this court noted that while the Medical Malpractice Act applies exclusively to claims arising from injury to or death of a patient, the claimant need not be a patient, and non-patient claimants may include representatives of a patient acting on the patient's behalf and other persons with claims arising from injuries to or death of a patient. That language applies to the facts of the present case. In summary, nothing in the Medical Malpractice Act distinguishes between damage claims by the patient under Article 2315, damage claims by statutory survivors of the patient under Articles 2315.1 and 2315.2, and damage claims by statutorily-limited relatives of the patient under Article 2315.6. The fact that the damages recoverable under Article 2315.6 are limited to mental anguish damages and to specifically required facts and circumstances does not serve to remove Article 2315.6 claims from the applicability of the Medical Malpractice Act, as long as the mental anguish arises from the injury to or death of a patient caused by the negligence of a qualified health care provider.