Court Opinion

ID: 9571945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:36:36.852479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:13.386471
License: Public Domain

RANDALL, Judge
(concurring specially).
I concur with the result reached by the majority. But I would have reached affir-mance on the first issue, the statute of limitations. I find that issue dispositive in respondent’s favor. I conclude the trial court erred, as a matter of law, in dismissing respondent’s claims of a complete defense based on the two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice actions. Respondent cross-appealed for review on this issue, and thus, it is a suitable basis to dispose of the entire lawsuit.
With the large amount of pedicle screws in the surgical stream of commerce across the country, and with the various other lawsuits arising from this same issue, I suggest it is essential to examine whether the shorter two-year statute of limitations applies or the generic six-year statute. Minn.Stat. §§ 541.05 (six-year), .07(1) (1996) (two-year).
As the majority points out, the district court followed Kaiser in coming to the conclusion that the six-year statute of limitations applied. Kaiser v. Memorial Blood Ctr., 486 N.W.2d 762 (Minn.1992). I suggest that not only does Kaiser not support the six-year statute of limitations on this set of facts, but rather the logic and analysis of Kaiser compels a conclusion that the two-year medical malpractice statute of limitations applies.
The relevant lesson from Kaiser is that negligence committed by a person or entity acting pursuant to their professional licen-sure is malpractice, subject to the two-year statute of limitations, while negligence not committed under the authority of licensure, may be simple “common law” negligence, subject to the six-year statute of limitations.
Kaiser points out
blood banks are not expressly mentioned as a class of defendant governed by the two-year limitation in Minn.Stat. § 541.07(1).
Kaiser, 486 N.W.2d at 766. That is in direct contrast with this case, because respondent, a hospital, falls squarely within the two-year medical practice statute of limitations for
all actions against physicians, surgeons, dentists, other health care professionals * * * [and] hospitals * * * for malpractice, error, mistake or failure to cure, whether based on contract or tort.
Minn.Stat. § 541.07(1). Kaiser states in relevant part:
The term “professional service,” defined in Minn.Stat. § 145.61, subd. 3, included in the definition of “health care” in Minn.Stat. § 145.61, subd. 4, which together form the statutory source for determining what “other health care professionals” are covered by the two-year statute of limitations, refers to “service[s] rendered by a professional of the type such professional is licensed to perform.” Id. § 145.61, subd. 3 (Emphasis added.) There is thus a distinction between malpractice by professionals acting pursuant to their professional licensure from negligence based upon conduct for which a professional license is not required.
Kaiser, 486 N.W.2d at 767 (footnote omitted).
Hospitals, like physicians and surgeons, are licensed. As a result, negligently operating under authority of their licensure subjects hospitals, like physicians, to medical malpractice lawsuits, and thus hospitals are entitled to the two-year statute of limitations.
Further, in Kaiser, the plaintiffs case was found to be “about the administrative and standard-making functions of the blood bank industry for which a physician’s or nurse’s professional license is not required.” Kaiser, 486 N.W.2d at 768.
*545Here, the inescapable fact is that this lawsuit sounds in medical malpractice, not “standard-making functions” of an unlicensed entity. Appellants’ claims include allegations of negligent nondisclosure, negligence in failing to prevent surgeons from implanting pedicle screws in appellants, and negligence in failing to get the patients’ informed consent before using medical devices still in the experimental stage. Those allegations are medical malpractice allegations against the hospital from start to finish.
This case would have been pleaded as a straight-forward malpractice case against the hospital and would have included claims against the operating surgeons, if the plaintiffs had sued within two years of the time their claims accrued. Because appellants failed to sue within the statutory period for malpractice, they are circumventing the two-year statutory period by “splitting a cause of action,” naming just the hospital as a defendant, instead of both the hospital and the surgeons, and alleging medical negligence against the hospital, but calling it “administrative negligence.”
The philosophical question of whether medical professionals are entitled to the shorter two-year period of limitations, as opposed to other professions which generally are under the six-year statute, is not before us.
I conclude that Kaiser is controlling. This ease is a medical malpractice claim against a hospital operating under its licensure. The allegations, among others, of lack of informed consent, allowing insertion of improper medical devices, and negligent disclosure are straight-forward malpractice allegations. Accordingly, I conclude the district court erred by not dismissing appellants’ claims against respondent hospital as time-barred as a matter of law.
PETERSON, Judge.
I join in the concurrence of Judge Randall.