Court Opinion

ID: 9739693
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:19:34.382224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:13.455680
License: Public Domain

HARTEN, Judge
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I respectfully dissent because appellants’ affidavits fail to provide the crucial medical link between the act and the result.
On the causation issue, appellants offered the affidavit of Dr. Peterson, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, who signed the death certificate. Dr. Peterson stated:
There is no way to prove what actually caused the heart to stop. However, it is my opinion that the sequence of events, including the restraint itself, was a participating factor in bringing about the cardiac arrest.
(Emphasis added.)
In Luebner v. Sterner, 493 N.W.2d 119, 121 (Minn.1992), the supreme court reaffirmed the causation standard necessary to state a prima facie medical malpractice case, to-wit, the “more probable than not” standard. Appellants have presented no expert affidavit opining that the take-down procedure more probably than not caused Bruce Hempel’s death. Dr. Peterson’s affidavit stated that the sequence of events including the take-down was a “participating factor” in the death. The extent to which the sequence of events (of which the take-down was but a part) participated in Bruce Hempel’s death remains vague and unknown. There are no specific causation details as required by the supreme court in Sorenson v. St. Paul Ramsey Medical Ctr., 457 N.W.2d 188, 192-93 (Minn.1990). Whereas I join the court’s opinion in all other respects, the causation deficiency is dispositive and compels affirmance of the trial court’s dismissal.