Opinion ID: 839177
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Heading Rank: 2

Heading: THE PROPER INTERPRETATION OF MCL 600.2912a(2)

Text: The Legislature's addition of MCL 600.2912a(2) should be read in light of the Falcon decision. This Court follows the principle that when a statute uses a common-law term and there is no clear legislative intent to alter the common law, the term will be interpreted as having the same meaning as at common law. Ford Motor Co. v. City of Woodhaven, 475 Mich. 425, 439, 716 N.W.2d 247 (2006). Additionally, the Legislature is presumed to be aware of judicial interpretations of existing law when passing legislation. Id. at 439-440, 716 N.W.2d 247. In this instance, the Legislature appears to have reacted to a particular opinion of this Court, so that opinion's holdings offer considerable insight into the Legislature's intent. When interpreting MCL 600.2912a(2), then, it is important to keep in mind several principles established by the Falcon decision: (1) loss-of-opportunity claims are subject to the more-probable-than-not standard for proving causation, (2) the injury in a loss-of-opportunity claim is the loss of a substantial opportunity to avoid physical harm, not the actual physical harm itself, and (3) loss of a 37.5 percent opportunity of living constitutes a compensable loss of a substantial opportunity to avoid physical harm. Chief Justice Taylor interprets MCL 600.2912a(2) without considering these principles from Falcon, and thus comes to the mistaken conclusion that the statute is unenforceable and inconsistent with the lost-opportunity doctrine. The first sentence of MCL 600.2912a(2) assigns a medical-malpractice plaintiff the burden of proving that he or she suffered an injury that more probably than not was proximately caused by the negligence of the defendant or defendants. Chief Justice Taylor concludes that this sentence precludes lost-opportunity claims because those claims only arise when a plaintiff cannot prove that a defendant's negligence more probably than not caused the plaintiff's injury. Ante at 133. But this overlooks two principles gleaned from Falcon that the Legislature would have been aware of while drafting this sentence: loss-of-opportunity claims are subject to the more-probable-than-not standard of causation and, in such claims, the injury is the loss of an opportunity to avoid the physical harm, not the associated physical harm itself. When the first sentence of MCL 600.2912a(2) is interpreted according to Falcon's articulation, its causation requirement does not preclude claims for loss of opportunity. It simply codifies the causation requirement that applies to claims for the injury of suffering physical harm as well as claims for the injury of the loss of an opportunity to avoid physical harm. Just like Falcon, MCL 600.2912a(2) requires that a plaintiff asserting a cause of action for loss of opportunity prove that the defendant more probably than not caused the loss of an opportunity to survive or the loss of an opportunity to achieve a better result. The first sentence of MCL 600.2912a(2) should also be interpreted in accordance with Falcon's understanding of the word injury. In medical-malpractice cases, the underlying injury is quite often death or some physical harm. But Falcon identified a distinct injury in medical-malpractice casesthe loss of a substantial opportunity to avoid physical harm. This is significant, because a lost-opportunity plaintiff, by definition, cannot prove that a defendant's malpractice more probably than not caused the patient to suffer physical harm or death. Take the example of a patient who before treatment had a 40 percent chance of survival as the result of a preexisting condition. If that patient died after being negligently treated by a physician, the plaintiff would not be able to prove that the physician's malpractice more probably than not (50 percent or greater) caused the patient's death. There was a 60 percent chance that the patient would have died regardless of the malpractice, as a result of the preexisting condition. But the plaintiff might be able to show that the physician's malpractice more probably than not caused the patient to lose up to a 40 percent chance of avoiding death. [2] The first sentence of MCL 600.2912a(2) simply places this burden to prove causation on a plaintiff, whether the alleged injury is the physical harm itself or the loss of an opportunity to avoid harm. Moreover, the explicit recognition of the loss-of-opportunity doctrine in the second sentence of MCL 600.2912a(2) supports the conclusion that the Legislature did not intend to preclude lost-opportunity claims by adopting the more-probable-than-not standard of causation. The second sentence states: In an action alleging medical malpractice, the plaintiff cannot recover for loss of an opportunity to survive or an opportunity to achieve a better result unless the opportunity was greater than 50%. MCL 600.2912a(2). If the Legislature had intended to reject the lost-opportunity doctrine, it would have entirely prohibited plaintiffs from recovering for a loss of an opportunity. Instead, it permitted recovery for loss of an opportunity under certain circumstancesif the opportunity was greater than 50 percent. This sentence merely sets the threshold for invoking the loss-of-opportunity doctrine. It requires that a plaintiff's premalpractice opportunity to survive or achieve a better result was greater than 50 percent. [3] The conclusion that the first and second sentences of MCL 600.2912a(2) do not conflict is also related to the proper interpretation of the second sentence. Chief Justice Taylor identifies an ambiguity in the second sentence that, he contends, can only be resolved by adding words or by redefining the term injury. Ante at 114. [4] The Court of Appeals also identified this ambiguity in Fulton v. William Beaumont Hosp., 253 Mich.App. 70, 655 N.W.2d 569 (2002). Fulton described the ambiguity: the second sentence of the statute requires a plaintiff to show either that the premalpractice opportunity was greater than 50 percent or that the opportunity was reduced by more than 50 percent. Id. at 77, 655 N.W.2d 569. In short, the ambiguous term is the statute's second use of the word opportunity. I disagree with the conclusion that none of the multiple, contradictory interpretations can be shown to be the correct construction of legislative intent. While reasonable minds could differ with respect to the meaning of this statute, the correct interpretation can be discerned by conventional means of construction. The proper interpretation of the second use of the word opportunity in MCL 600.2912a(2) can be resolved by simply considering the entire text of the sentence. The first time opportunity is used, the statute speaks of recovery for loss of an opportunity to survive. MCL 600.2912a(2). By using this term from Falcon without modification, the Legislature adopted Falcon's articulation of the lost-opportunity cause of action. And we know from Falcon that by the very nature of a lost-opportunity claim, the opportunity alleged to have been lost must be the premalpractice opportunity. The word opportunity in the phrase loss of an opportunity must refer to the premalpractice opportunity because that is the opportunity that is lost in some measure and, thus, creates a claim. The second time opportunity is used in the sentence, it is not preceded by the phrase loss of an. But the statute's replication of the term opportunity within the same sentence clearly indicates that they relate to each other and are to be construed identically. Thus, the term opportunity in isolation has the same meaning that it does within the phrase loss of an opportunity to survive. Accordingly, a plaintiff cannot recover for the loss of an opportunity unless the opportunitythe premalpractice opportunity that was allegedly lost in some measurewas greater than 50 percent. Thus, this interpretation does not require that any words be added to the sentence; it merely requires the word opportunity to be construed consistently within the same sentence. The other proposed meaning of the statute's second use of the word opportunity would conflict with the sentence's first use of the word. Instead of reading the phrase unless the opportunity was greater than 50% as written, this interpretation would infer the words loss of in front of opportunity. Justice Markman advocates this interpretation. He concludes that the opportunity clearly refers back to the loss of an opportunity, and thus the sentence means that the loss of the opportunity must be greater than 50 percent. Post at 133. But this interpretation conflates the phrase loss of an opportunity with the phrase the opportunity. It assumes that the Legislature used the phrase the opportunity as a shorthand reference for loss of an opportunity and requires the reader to infer the phrase loss of before the second use of the word opportunity. This interpretation is less plausible than my interpretation, which gives the term opportunity the same meaning regardless of whether it appears alone or within the phrase loss of an opportunity, and does not require reading language into the statute. [5] In sum, I cannot conclude that this competing interpretation is correct when it poses linguistic problems that are not found in the other interpretation. Moreover, interpreting the word opportunity to mean premalpractice opportunity comports with the purpose of the statute and the context in which it was adopted, while the other interpretation does not. Falcon adopted the loss-of-opportunity doctrine to provide a cause of action to plaintiffs who could not establish causation for physical harm, but could establish causation for the loss of a substantial opportunity to avoid that physical harm. MCL 600.2912a(2) cannot limit recovery for the loss of an opportunity to cases in which the loss was greater than 50 percent, because any plaintiff who satisfied that condition would have a traditional medical-malpractice claim for the death or physical harm itself. [6] A plaintiff who can show that malpractice caused the loss of a more than 50 percent opportunity to avoid death or physical harm can meet the more-probable-than-not standard of causation for the associated death or physical harm. This interpretation would permit a loss-of-opportunity claim when a plaintiff's chance for survival was reduced from 80 percent to 20 percent, but not when the plaintiff's chance for survival was reduced from 80 percent to 40 percent. It would not make sense to permit a plaintiff whose chance of survival was reduced from 80 percent to 20 percent to bring a lost-opportunity claim, because that plaintiff could show that the negligence more probably than not caused the death, thus establishing a traditional wrongful-death claim. Meanwhile, the statute would deny recovery for the loss of an opportunity to a plaintiff who suffered death, but could only show that the malpractice reduced his opportunity to survive from 80 percent to 40 percent. The plaintiff in that case would be left with no cause of action at all; he could not meet the more-probable-than-not standard of causation for the injury of death, and he would be precluded from bringing a lost-opportunity claim because he lost only 40 percent of his opportunity. This cannot be the result intended by the Legislature. This interpretation of the statute would prevent Falcon's intended class of plaintiffs from bringing a loss-of-opportunity claim, while still recognizing a cause of action for loss of opportunity. It would provide a class of plaintiffs who already have a traditional medical-malpractice cause of action with an additional cause of action for loss of opportunity. Such a result is illogical in light of one significant purpose of the statuteto codify the loss-of-opportunity doctrine recognized in Falcon. Finally, interpreting the statute as referring to the premalpractice opportunity is consistent with the history of the amendment. That is, MCL 600.2912a(2) is understood to be a legislative reaction to Falcon. MCL 600.2912a(2) retained the loss-of-opportunity doctrine, so it could not have been intended to entirely preclude the class of plaintiffs recognized by Falcon from bringing such claims; such a drastic step would be entirely at odds with the rationale of the loss-of-opportunity doctrine. Rather, MCL 600.2912a(2) retained the doctrine, but set the threshold at 50 percent, so that only plaintiffs who had a greater than 50 percent premalpractice opportunity to survive or achieve a better result could bring a claim. This interpretation is the only reasonable explanation for the Legislature's actionit aligns with the Legislature's apparent intent to both endorse the doctrine and place a limit on it. In sum, I concur with Chief Justice Taylor that plaintiff in this case proved a traditional medical-malpractice claim based on his physical injuries and that the jury's verdict should be upheld. [7] Plaintiff did not assert, or need to resort to, a claim for loss of opportunity. However, I disagree that the second sentence of MCL 600.2912a(2) is substantially incomprehensible. The correct interpretation of the second sentence can be discerned by an examination of the text of the statute. The result of this analysis is confirmed by the history of both the loss-of-opportunity doctrine and the statute. There is no internal conflict within the statute. The loss-of-opportunity doctrine is entirely consistent with the more-probable-than-not causation standard, so there is no conflict between the first and second sentences of MCL 600.2912a(2).