Opinion ID: 1955771
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: whether sdcl 21-3-11 benefits clinical lab.

Text: Medical corporations can only be formed by individuals who are licensed to practice medicine and when the corporations are established for the study, diagnosis and treatment of human ailments and injuries, whether physical or mental. SDCL 47-11-1. Further, only corporate employees who are licensed pursuant to the Medical Practice Act may provide medical or surgical treatment, consultation or advice[.] Id. Clinical Lab, a professional association, is such a medical corporation and is engaged in the business of offering laboratory facilities and services. The parties dispute whether Clinical Lab is a practitioner of the healing arts within the meaning of SDCL 21-3-11. If Clinical Lab is such a practitioner, it can avail itself of that statute's damages limitation benefit. As originally enacted in 1976, SDCL 21-3-11 limited to $500,000 the general damages which could be awarded, but did not limit the special damages which could be awarded. 1976 S.D.Laws Ch. 154, § 1. This benefit applied only to causes of action arising between 1976 and 1986, and then only to certain classifications of individuals, as well as to sanitoriums and hospitals. Id. §§ 1 & 2. In 1978, the listing of named benefitted individuals was expanded. 1978 S.D.Laws Ch. 154. In 1986, the list of benefitted individuals was again expanded, though sanitoriums were deleted from the list of benefitted entities, leaving hospitals as the only benefitted entity. 1986 S.D.Laws Ch. 172. [12] The 1986 amendments also extended the statute's benefit of a limitation on an award of damages to other practitioner[s] of the healing arts. Id. In Cunningham v. Yankton Clinic, P.A., 262 N.W.2d 508 (S.D.1978), we had occasion to examine a statutory listing of individuals and entities to determine whether a non-listed entity received the statutory benefits. In that case, the plaintiffs had brought a medical malpractice action against the Yankton Clinic. That medical corporation asserted a two-year statute of limitations defense. The language of the two-year statute of limitations enumerated individuals and entities who were benefitted by the two-year time period, but did not include medical corporations. We said there that we would not enlarge a statute beyond its face where the statutory terms are clear and unambiguous in meaning and do not lead to an absurd or unreasonable conclusion. Id. at 510. We refused to extend the unambiguous list to include medical corporations and held the action had been timely brought within the applicable three-year limitations period. Following that 1978 decision, the legislature enacted SDCL 15-2-14.3, a new provision which specifically provided that professional corporations, including medical corporations, would benefit from the same limitations period as would the individual professionals who were stockholders of the corporation, i.e., two years. However, SDCL 21-3-11, was not amended to include medical corporations, nor was a special provision enacted extending a similar protection to medical corporations, even though the lists at issue in Cunningham and in SDCL 21-3-11 were practically identical. Clearly, when the legislature wants to include a medical corporation as a beneficiary of its enactments, it knows how to do so. Although the plain list of individuals and entities which are benefitted by SDCL 21-3-11 does not include a medical corporation, our deliberations are not complete. We must determine whether a medical corporation is one of the other practitioner[s] of the healing arts added in the 1986 amendments to SDCL 21-3-11. We conclude only a natural person can be a practitioner and that the legislature intended this phrase to extend the benefits of SDCL 21-3-11 to unnamed natural persons, not to unnamed entities. We are aided in our conclusion, that a practitioner of the healing arts cannot be an entity, by our discussion in South Dakota Physician's Health Group v. State, 447 N.W.2d 511 (S.D.1989). We said there that a practitioner of such an art is one who engages in, or offers to engage in, or holds himself or herself out as qualified to engage in such an art, and holds a legal and unrevoked license or certificate, issued by the State of South Dakota, under which he or she practices. Id. at 514. Although our decision in that case was not necessarily dependent upon the recited definition, we now hold that Physician's Health Group defines a practitioner in the context of the healing arts. Clinical Lab asserts it can be a practitioner because person is statutorily defined to include natural persons, partnerships, associations, and corporations[.] SDCL 2-14-2(18). Though Clinical Lab is generally correct, that statute also includes important qualifying language unless the context otherwise plainly requires[.] Id. The language of the Physician's Health Group definitionone who engages in, himself or herself, holds a legal and unrevoked license, and he or shecan refer only to a natural person able to be licensed under the Medical Practice Act. It is important to remember that a corporation cannot obtain this license; it can only be obtained by the people associated with the corporation. We have, on occasion, found individuals to be practitioner[s] of the healing arts even though they were not licensed under the Medical Practice Act. However, unlike a corporation, those individuals were capable of becoming licensed under the Medical Practice Act. Fjerstad v. Knutson, 271 N.W.2d 8 (S.D.1978), (an unlicensed intern was engaged in the practice of medicine); Nelson v. Palmquist, 363 N.W.2d 570 (S.D.1985) (an unlicensed chiropractor was practicing a healing art). Our case law leads but to one conclusion: A practitioner is a natural person. We also find statutory support for the conclusion that a practitioner must be a natural person from the language of SDCL ch. 36-2. That chapter refers to practitioners of healing arts in general and recites: Terms used in this chapter [36-2], unless the context otherwise requires, mean: .... (3) Healing art, healing, art of healing, practicing healing, practicing of healing, [-] any system, treatment, operation, diagnosis, prescription, or practice for the ascertainment, cure, relief, palliation, adjustment, or practice for the ascertainment, cure, relief, palliation, adjustment, or correction of any human disease, ailment, deformity, injury, unhealthy or abnormal physical or mental condition[.] SDCL 36-2-1(3). This language is not, on its face, confined in its application to natural persons. However, in addition to this language, we review other enactments relating to the same subject. Meyerink, 391 N.W.2d at 184. The language throughout the balance of the general chapter only makes sense when interpreted to mean a natural, not a corporate, person. We conclude the language of statutory and case law plainly requires a practitioner to be a natural person. We therefore hold the term other practitioner of the healing arts does not include entities such as Clinical Lab, a medical corporation. Thus, the trial court erred in applying SDCL 21-3-11 to reduce the jury's determination of $3.7 million damages to an award of $1 million. Its judgment of an award of $1 million damages against Clinical Lab is reversed. The trial court is instructed to enter judgment which reflects the jury's determination of the damages suffered by Sander as a result of the medical malpractice of Clinical Lab. Our determination, that SDCL 21-3-11 does not benefit Clinical Lab, removes the necessity to address any of the remaining issues raised regarding that statute. Nevertheless, because several of the questions raised are capable of repetition in future medical malpractice actions, we will resolve two of the more important questions. See Physician's Health Group, 447 N.W.2d at 515; Rapid City Journal v. Circuit Court, 283 N.W.2d 563, 565 (S.D.1979).