Opinion ID: 2638908
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Trial Judge Properly Decided the Fraudulent Concealment Claim Because the Judge Could Decide the Claim Without Deciding a Fact Issue in Common with the Negligence Claim

Text: {28} To toll the statute of limitations under the doctrine of fraudulent concealment, Plaintiff was required to prove (1) Defendant was aware of his alleged negligence and concealed it from Plaintiff, or failed to disclose medical information pertinent to Plaintiff's treatment, thereby breaching his fiduciary duty to Plaintiff; and (2) Plaintiff lacked knowledge of her cause of action and could not have discovered it by exercising reasonable diligence during the statutory period. See Tomlinson, 2005-NMSC-20, ¶¶ 11, 13, 25; Kern, 102 N.M. at 456, 697 P.2d at 139; Keithley v. St. Joseph Hosp., Inc., 102 N.M. 565, 569, 698 P.2d 435, 439 (Ct. App. 1984). [3] While fraudulent concealment does not require proof of a negligent act, proximate cause or damages, see Keithley, 102 N.M. at 569-70, 698 P.2d at 439-40, evidence of a negligent act and its proximate causation of a plaintiff's injuries, in the face of a defendant's silence or assurances to the contrary, can certainly be material to a judge's finding of fraudulent concealment. See, e.g., id. at 571, 698 P.2d at 441 (affidavits from experts stating treatment was clearly improper helped create a genuine issue of fact as to hospital's concealment of possible over-radiation). {29} The material facts on which the parties rely assist us in determining whether the judge could decide the fraudulent concealment claim without deciding a fact issue material to Plaintiff's medical negligence claim. Defendant essentially concedes he should not have prescribed Naprosyn for Plaintiff given her history of sensitivity to medications containing an aspirin-like substance. Defendant testified that when Plaintiff was hospitalized in March 1995, he told her that Naprosyn contains aspirin or an aspirin-like substance. The parties agree that Defendant told Plaintiff had he remembered Plaintiff had a sensitivity to aspirin, he would not have prescribed the Naprosyn. The evidence also showed Defendant told Plaintiff after her hospitalization she should no longer take Naprosyn. At a minimum, this evidence suggests Defendant may have been negligent in prescribing the Naprosyn and that he conveyed this information to Plaintiff. {30} To determine whether Plaintiff raised an issue of material fact regarding Defendant's alleged concealment, therefore, we focus on the issue of whether Defendant withheld information from Plaintiff suggesting that his potentially negligent act may have proximately caused Plaintiff's hospitalization and resulting damages. Plaintiff contends Defendant misled her when he attributed Plaintiff's hospitalization to an adverse reaction to chemotherapy rather than as a result of aggravated asthma symptoms resulting from Defendant's negligent prescription of Naprosyn. Defendant argues that indeed Plaintiff's hospitalization was due not to the Naprosyn, but to the pulmonary emboli which resulted from her chemotherapy treatments. {31} To support his position, Defendant points to evidence showing that while Plaintiff was initially admitted to the hospital for asthma and excessive wheezing, the attending physician and radiologists diagnosed her with pulmonary emboli because her reaction to testing and medications, and her worsening condition subsequent to being admitted, suggested she was suffering from pulmonary emboli rather than asthma, though her wheezing was symptomatic of both conditions. Defendant testified that the pulmonary emboli, which can mimic the symptoms of asthma, were caused by Plaintiff's cancer and subsequent chemotherapy, and claims that while he told her the Naprosyn may have contributed to her wheezing and exacerbation of her asthma, the Naprosyn could not have caused or contributed to the pulmonary emboli. {32} This evidence could be interpreted as consistent with Defendant's claim that he alerted Plaintiff he may have acted negligently in prescribing Naprosyn, but that his negligence did not in any way cause her hospitalization and damages. Plaintiff, however, presented from her hospital medical record a consultation report by Dr. Webb, Plaintiff's attending physician, which describes the pulmonary emboli as the cause of her hospitalization, but notes that [a]lmost surely the asthma contributed to Plaintiff's hospitalization and the need to intubate. According to Plaintiff, this report suggested that Defendant failed to disclose medical information pertinent to Plaintiff's treatment, thereby breaching his fiduciary duty to Plaintiff. {33} Plaintiff's argument with regard to Defendant's alleged concealment of a causal relationship between the Naprosyn and Plaintiff's hospitalization certainly could have been much stronger, both at summary judgment and at the evidentiary hearing. For instance, Plaintiff might have submitted an affidavit from an expert stating that Defendant's negligent prescription of Naprosyn proximately caused Plaintiff's hospitalization. Nonetheless, even without such evidence, in denying summary judgment the judge must have been persuaded by Dr. Webb's report that there was a material issue regarding whether Defendant fraudulently represented to Plaintiff that the Naprosyn did not cause her hospitalization, though it may have exacerbated her wheezing. The propriety of this ruling on summary judgment is not before us. Plaintiff created a fact issue regarding the first prong of the fraudulent concealment claim that was also material to the issue of proximate cause in the medical negligence claim. If a jury were to conclude that Defendant was negligent in prescribing Naprosyn, and that this negligent act proximately caused Plaintiff's hospitalization and damages, such a finding would be material to whether Defendant fraudulently concealed his negligence. See Keithley, 102 N.M. at 569-70, 698 P.2d at 439. By resolving the issue of proximate cause himself, the trial judge foreclosed a jury finding on the issue, thus potentially depriving Plaintiff of her right to a jury trial on a disputed issue of fact underlying her legal claim. See Woods 105 N.M. at 184, 730 P.2d at 487 (holding that there was a right to have the legal claims tried first where there were common issues of fact between the equitable and legal claims). {34} However, because the test for tolling a statute of limitations due to fraudulent concealment has two prongs, both of which must be satisfied, we must determine whether evidence of a negligent act and its proximate causation of a plaintiff's injuries is also material to whether Plaintiff lacked knowledge of her cause of action and could not have discovered it with reasonable diligence during the statutory period. Although there may be times when evidence of negligence or proximate cause could be material to whether the plaintiff knew of his or her potential cause of action, in this case such evidence would not have made a difference with regard to the trial court's finding that Plaintiff was or should have been aware of her potential cause of action against Defendant. {35} As previously noted, Defendant as much as conceded during Plaintiff's hospitalization that he should not have prescribed Naprosyn in light of the Plaintiff's history. At a minimum, this should have alerted Plaintiff to Defendant's potential negligence. The evidence also showed that sometime before April 10, 1995, Plaintiff told Defendant's staff she believed the mistaken prescription had almost killed her, and that she suspected the Naprosyn at least contributed to her condition after talking with Defendant at the hospital in March 1995. In addition, with regard to the report by Dr. Webb on which Plaintiff relied to create an issue of fact regarding Defendant's alleged concealment of what caused her hospitalization, the district court found that Plaintiff reviewed Dr. Webb's report approximately two months after her March 1995 Memorial Medical Center hospitalization. Plaintiff does not challenge this finding on appeal. Under the facts developed here, we conclude that the factual issues material to the second prong of Plaintiff's fraudulent concealment claim were independent of those relevant to her medical negligence claim. {36} Thus, while the first prong of Plaintiff's fraudulent concealment claim itself raised an issue of fact that was material to Plaintiff's medical negligence claim, the uncontested finding that Plaintiff nevertheless knew of her cause of action, or could have discovered it by exercising reasonable diligence during the statutory period, rendered the issue of Defendant's actual concealment immaterial to her equitable claim. In other words, the trial court could properly dispose of Plaintiff's fraudulent concealment claim regardless of any finding of actual concealment; this factual issue would not have made a difference to the court's resolution of the equitable claim. Because there were not common issues of fact material to both the fraudulent concealment and negligence claims, there was no infringement on Plaintiff's right to have the facts underlying her legal claim determined by a jury.