Opinion ID: 1862888
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: St Mary's Hospital, Inc. v. Phillipe

Text: The facts of the first case are as follows. Juslin Phillipe died while giving birth to her daughter, Ecclesianne. Ecclesianne was born severely brain damaged. Charles Phillipe, Juslin's husband and the personal representative of her estate, brought a medical malpractice wrongful death action against St. Mary's Hospital on behalf of himself and the decedent's four surviving children. The parties in this case chose to proceed under the statutory alternative dispute process for medical malpractice claims set forth in section 766.207, Florida Statutes (1997). St. Mary's conceded liability and the case proceeded under that arbitration process on the issue of damages. It is important to note that the independent personal injury action of the brain-damaged child, Ecclesianne, was not part of the arbitration process. After a hearing, the arbitrators awarded the following damages: $250,000 in noneconomic damages to both Charles, the husband, and Ecclesianne, the daughter; $175,000 in noneconomic damages to each of the remaining children; $2,284,804 to the family in economic damages for loss of services; $943,000 in economic damages for loss of special services to Ecclesianne; $3,398 in funeral expenses; and $510,632 in attorneys' fees. The total amount of the arbitration award was $4,766,834. St. Mary's appealed the award and filed a motion to stay the award pending review pursuant to section 766.212(2). That provision prohibits an arbitration panel or circuit court from staying an arbitration award, but it allows a district court of appeal to stay such an award if necessary to prevent manifest injustice. The motion to stay was denied by the district court, and the trial court entered a final judgment ratifying the arbitration award. St. Mary's appealed the final judgment and attempted to post a supersedeas bond in the trial court under rule 9.310 in an attempt to obtain an automatic stay from the execution of the judgment. The trial court declined to stay the execution and directed the sheriff to levy on St. Mary's assets. St. Mary's subsequently paid Phillipe over two million dollars, the amount of the judgment that had become due. On appeal, St. Mary's argued that, because the limited stay provision under section 766.212(2) abrogates the automatic stay provision of rule 9.310, the statute unconstitutionally infringes on this Court's exclusive authority to regulate appellate practice and procedure. The district court disagreed, holding that section 766.212 created a modified right to judicial review of arbitration awards and an equally substantive right to payment of the award during review. Phillipe, 699 So.2d at 1019. The district court also held that the trial court properly refused to enter a stay under section 766.212(2) because it was not manifestly unjust to require St. Mary's to promptly pay the award. The district court certified to this Court the question of the constitutionality of section 766.212(2). St. Mary's next argued that the arbitrators' total award of noneconomic damages in the amount of $1,025,000 exceeded the $250,000 cap set forth in section 766.207(7)(b). That provision provides that [n]on-economic damages shall be limited to a maximum of $250,000 per incident. St. Mary's asserted that the term per incident reflected that the limit applies in the aggregate to all claimants, rather than separately to each wrongful death beneficiary. The district court agreed with St. Mary's. The court concluded that the plain language of the statute indicates that there can be no more than $250,000 in non-economic damages awarded by the arbitrators under section 766.207, no matter how many different people may have a direct benefit in the award, or the source of their entitlement to share in the award. Id. at 1025. Accordingly, the district court reversed the arbitration award of noneconomic damages, remanded for the reduction of such damages to $250,000 in the aggregate, and certified the second question for our review. In its final claim, St. Mary's argued that the award of economic damages for the decedent's loss of earning capacity was improper because such damages are not available under the Wrongful Death Act. The district court disagreed, holding that the elements of economic damages available in a voluntary binding arbitration of a medical malpractice claim are controlled by the Medical Malpractice Act rather than the Wrongful Death Act and that sections 766.202(3) and 766.207(7)(a) of the Medical Malpractice Act permit the award for loss of earning capacity.