Court Opinion

ID: 9552215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:06:24.345495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:45.565586
License: Public Domain

Judge DAVIDSON
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree that § 13-20-602, C.R.S.1997, can be read strictly as requiring that a certificate of review be filed only for a licensed professional named as a party. I also agree that it is neither absurd nor unjust to provide to professional persons statutory protection against expensive and time-consuming malpractice claims that ultimately are determined to be without basis.
In my view, however, the application of the statute was intended to be broader.
A statute must be construed in a manner that gives effect to the legislative purpose underlying its enactment and that achieves a just and reasonable result consistent with that purpose. It must be construed as a whole, taking into account the nature of the problem addressed by the General Assembly and the statutory construction that best reflects the legislative objectives. Tate v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 815 P.2d 15 (Colo.1991).
In the late 1980’s, numerous state legislatures reacted to a perceived rise in frivolous malpractice claims by enacting statutes that required plaintiffs to file certificates of review of affidavits in order to ensure that sucb claims were, or could be, supported by an expert opinion that the standard of care in the profession had been violated. See,' e.g.; Ga.Code Ann. § 9-ll-9.1(a) (1987) (“in any action for damages alleging professional malpractice, the plaintiff shall be required to file with the complaint an affidavit of an expert”); Dozier v. Clayton County Hospital Authority, 206 Ga.App. 62, 424 S.E.2d 632 (1992).
Section 13-20-601, et seq., C.R.S.1997, is the version enacted in Colorado. It applies the certificate of review filing requirement to “every action for damages or indemnity based upon the alleged professional negligence [of a licensed professional.]” Section 13-20-602(1), C.R.S.1997. The Supreme Court has stated that the purpose of the requirement is “to expedite the litigation process in cases filed against licensed professionals and to prevent the filing of frivolous actions in this area.” Martinez v. Badis, 842 P.2d 245, 251 (Colo.1992).
A claim against an employer under the doctrine of respondeat superior is derivative in nature; it is based entirely on the acts or omissions of employer’s ' employee and agents. See Arnold v. Colorado State Hospi*846tal, 910 P.2d 104 (Colo.App.1995); CJI-Civ.Sd 8:2 (1988) (under the doctrine of re-spondeat superior, any act or omission of the agent is, in law, the act or omission of the employer).
Here, plaintiffs claim was entitled “nursing malpractice,” and was based solely upon an allegation of defendant Norman’s professional negligence. However, although the nurse, the “named professional,” was dismissed as a defendant specifically because of plaintiffs failure to file a timely certificate of review, the identical claim proceeded against the state defendants under a theory of re-spondeat superior without any certification by any expert that the nurse’s actions violated the appropriate standard of care.
I do not think that this result was intended by the General Assembly when it enacted the certificate of review provision. I view the legislative purpose for the certificate of review requirement to include the prevention of baseless, professional malpractice actions, not merely the protection of individual defendants from the consequences of such actions. And, to accomplish this, a failure to file a timely certificate of review pertaining to the alleged malpractice of a particular licensed professional also should require dismissal of a derivative, respondeat superior claim against the professional person’s employer. See Dozier v. Clayton County Hospital Authority, supra (affidavit required for respon-deat superior claim because such claim is based upon negligence of a professional).
Accordingly, although I agree with the majority’s reversal of the dismissal of plaintiffs claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1994), I disagree with its determination that the trial court properly denied the state defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs respondeat superior claim for failure to file a timely certificate of review. And, because the trial court also correctly applied the one-year statute of limitations to dismiss the negligence claim against defendant Farrow, I would reverse the malpractice judgment against the state defendants.