Opinion ID: 1969380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: BORODITSCH v COMMUNITY EMS[14]

Text: On February 26, 1988, the plaintiff's husband had what proved to be a fatal heart attack. The plaintiff, a retired registered nurse, telephoned for emergency assistance. The dispatcher sent both a fire department ambulance and an ambulance operated by the defendant, Community Emergency Medical Services. The fire department ambulance arrived first. At this time, the plaintiff's husband was not breathing and he did not have a heartbeat. A heartbeat monitor detected only irregular fibrillation. When the defendant's ambulance arrived shortly thereafter, its personnel took over because of their higher level of medical training. [15] AEMT, Raymond Hopp, attempted to establish an airway into Mr. Boroditsch's lungs to aid the administration of oxygen. This procedure is known as intubation. The tube is inserted through the mouth of the patient, past the vocal cords and into the trachea. Once positioned, a cuff on the end of the tube is inflated to secure the positioning of the tube. After positioning the tube and inflating the cuff, Mr. Hopp secured its position by taping it down. After intubation, the defendant's personnel transported Mr. Boroditsch to the hospital. Mrs. Boroditsch accompanied her husband to the hospital, sitting in the front seat of the ambulance. Mrs. Boroditsch testified in her deposition that during the trip she noticed that her husband's stomach was distended. The AEMTS asserted that it was already distended when they arrived at the Boroditsch home. Shortly after his arrival at the hospital, Mr. Boroditsch was pronounced dead. The plaintiff filed suit against the defendant in Oakland Circuit Court on February 10, 1989. The plaintiff's key allegation is that the AEMTS erroneously inserted the endotracheal tube into Mr. Boroditsch's esophagus instead of his trachea. As a result of this error, oxygen was pushed into the stomach as opposed to the lungs. In addition, the erroneous positioning of the tube prevented any possibility of normal breathing. In support of her claim, the plaintiff offered not only her observation that Mr. Boroditsch's stomach was distended, but also the emergency room physician's note sheet which stated: Et tube replaced  was in esophagus. While the defendant asserts that the tube must have shifted positions while Mr. Boroditsch was transferred from the ambulance to the emergency room, the plaintiff's expert found this highly unlikely because the tube was securely taped and nothing unusual occurred during the transfer. In addition, the plaintiff's expert opinion that had the AEMTS checked the tube's placement with ordinary care, they would have discovered its improper positioning. It was the expert's opinion that the improper placement of the tube caused the decedent's death. Following an amendment to plaintiff's complaint, making specific allegations of gross negligence and wilful misconduct, the defendant moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7), (8), and (10). Following a hearing, Oakland Circuit Judge Robert Templin granted the defendant's motion because the plaintiff failed to make a showing of gross negligence per Gibbard  there was no evidence of subsequent negligence. The trial court also granted the defendant's motion for summary disposition on the alternative allegation of wilful misconduct because the plaintiff had not alleged such an indifference to whether harm will result as to be the equivalent of a willingness that it does result. The Court of Appeals reluctantly affirmed. We granted leave to appeal.
The trial court granted the defendant's motion for summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(8) because the plaintiff's complaint failed to allege that the defendant's negligence occurred after negligence on the part of the plaintiff's decedent. Having rejected Gibbard 's gross negligence, the trial court's ruling cannot stand. The operable question, therefore, is whether the plaintiff's complaint alleged gross negligence as defined in § 7 of the GTLA. Specifically, did the complaint allege facts sufficient to show that the defendant's conduct [was] so reckless as to demonstrate a substantial lack of concern for whether an injury results. Generally, when we review a trial court's grant of summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(8), we review results that were decided under the correct (or substantially correct) standard of the law. Unfortunately, neither the parties nor the trial court could predict that we would discard Gibbard 's definition of gross negligence and adopt the GTLA standard. [16] Because the trial court did not have the opportunity to decide the defendant's motion for summary disposition under the proper standard, we vacate its original order and remand this case to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion. [17] We do not retain jurisdiction.
The trial court granted the defendant's motion for summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(8) because the plaintiff failed to allege wilful and wanton misconduct as defined in Burnett, supra . While it is true that we have decided that the wilful and wanton misconduct standard will no longer be applied to allegations of wilful misconduct under the EMSA, a remand to the trial court is unnecessary. In its decision, the trial court used the more easily satisfied standard of wilful and wanton misconduct. It found that the plaintiff not only failed to allege an intent to harm, but that she also failed to allege such an indifference to whether harm will result as to be the equivalent of a willingness that it does result. [18] While the trial court used the wilful and wanton misconduct standard, a determination under this standard necessarily included a review under the wilful standard. A review of the pleadings in a light most favorable to the plaintiff does not reveal that the plaintiff alleged that the AEMTS intended to harm the plaintiff's decedent. As a result, we hold that the grant of summary disposition as to wilful misconduct was appropriate.