Court Opinion

ID: 9707802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:21:33.687059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:56.904388
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY
JOHNSON, J.:
¶ 1 I concur in the Majority’s conclusion that the trial court properly dismissed June C. Kennedy’s corporate negligence claim. As the Majority notes, Kennedy’s amended complaint fails to plead that supervisory personnel at Butler Memorial Hospital had sufficient knowledge of hospital staffs negligent acts to distinguish her claim from one of vicarious liability. Without an averment of the hospital’s knowledge, the amended complaint fails to state a claim for corporate negligence. I am compelled to dissent, however, from the Majority’s conclusion that Kennedy’s Certificate of Merit provided adequate support for her complaint, to allow her to proceed on her claim of vicarious liability. In my opinion, the certificate is materially deficient and does not offer adequate documentation that her claims are meritorious to allow her action to go forward. Accordingly, I would affirm the trial court’s order in its entirety.
¶ 2 In support of her claim of trial court error, Kennedy argues first that the certificates she filed were in the form specified by the Rules of Court, Brief for Appellant at 19, and second, that even if they were not, our recent decision in Hams v. Neu-burger operates to excuse defects of form when a plaintiffs effort demonstrates substantial compliance with the rationale underpinning the rule, Brief for Appellant at 21-22 (citing 877 A.2d 1275 (Pa.Super.2005)). The Majority agrees, finding both technical and substantial compliance with the Rules of Court. I find neither as the certificate failed to comport with the controlling section of the Rules, and Kennedy’s other filings failed to document the merit of her claims.
¶ 8 After filing Kennedy’s original Complaint, her counsel filed a certificate of merit that read as follows:
I, [name of counsel], Esquire, certify that an appropriate licensed professional has supplied a written statement to the undersigned that there is a basis to conclude that the care, skill or knowledge exercised or exhibited by this Defendant in the treatment, practice or work, that is the subject of the Complaint, fell outside acceptable professional standards and that such conduct was a cause in bringing about the harm.
*1048Certificate of Merit as to Butler Memorial Hospital, Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 13a, 56a. In response to the Hospital’s preliminary objections, the trial court granted Kennedy express leave to amend her Complaint. Although Kennedy then filed an Amended Complaint, opening an opportunity for the filing of a new certificate of merit, the language of her second certificate remained identical to that of the first. In my opinion, that language does not comply with the applicable section of the Rules of Court. Rule 1042.3 provides as follows:
Rule 1042.3. Certificate of Merit
(a) In any action based upon an allegation that a licensed professional deviated from an acceptable professional standard, the attorney for the plaintiff, or the plaintiff if not represented, shall file with the complaint or within sixty days after the filing of the complaint, a certificate of merit signed by the attorney or party that either
(1) an appropriate licensed professional has supplied a written statement that there exists a reasonable probability that the care, skill or knowledge exercised or exhibited in the treatment, practice or work that is the subject of the complaint, fell outside acceptable professional standards and that such conduct was a cause in bringing about the harm, or
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(2) the claim that the defendant deviated from an acceptable professional standard is based solely on allegations that other licensed professionals for whom this defendant is responsible deviated from an acceptable professional standard, or
Note: A certificate of merit, based on the statement of an appropriate licensed professional required by subdivision (a)(1), must be filed as to the other licensed professionals for whom the defendant is responsible. The statement is not required to identify the specific licensed professionals who deviated from an acceptable standard of care.
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(b) (1) A separate certificate of merit shall be filed as to each licensed professional against whom a claim is asserted. (2) If a complaint raises claims under both subdivisions (a)(1) and (a)(2) against the same defendant, the attorney for the plaintiff, or the plaintiff if not represented, shall file

(i) a separate certificate of merit as to each claim raised, or

(ii) a single certificate of merit stating that claims are raised under both subdivisions (a)(1) and (a)(2).

Pa.R.C.P. 1042.3(a), (b) (emphasis added). Significantly, Kennedy’s certificates of merit both track the language of subsection (a)(1) notwithstanding the clear directives of subsection (a)(2), which contemplates vicarious liability, and subsection (b)(2), which specifies the appropriate content of certificates filed in support of complaints that raise claims under both of section (a)’s subsections.
¶ 4 Kennedy is correct in her assessment that, in other cases, this Court has disregarded flaws in the form of a plaintiff’s certificate of merit on the basis of “substantial compliance” with the purpose of Rule 1042.3 “to prevent the filing of baseless medical professional liability claims.” Harris, 877 A.2d at 1278 (“We agree that since [the plaintiff] has satisfied the purpose of Rule 1042.3, he should not be barred from his day in court because he mistakenly, but reasonably believed he had met his obligation.”). The Majority finds *1049“substantial compliance” based on “the detailed nature of Kennedy’s amended complaint, even were the wrong subsection listed, a timely certifícate of merit was in fact filed, and the hospital certainly would know that the certifícate referred to the actions of its employees and would not be prejudiced.” Majority Slip Op. at 8. I disagree with the Majority’s analysis, as I believe it misperceives the reason for which certificates of merit are required and thus allows Kennedy to skirt the real purpose of Rule 1042.8.
¶ 5 Unlike a civil complaint, which does, in part, provide notice to the defendant of the substantive claims it must defend, the certificate of merit serves primarily to compel certification in every professional malpractice action that the plaintiffs claims, if accepted as true, possess some reasonable level of merit as to each defendant and have not been filed merely to expand the pool of resources available to satisfy the plaintiffs claim. See Harris, 877 A.2d at 1278 (“Clearly the underlying purpose of [Rule 1042.3] is to prevent the fifing of baseless medical professional liability claims.”). Thus, the rule requires certification of the claims’ merit by an appropriate licensed professional. See Pa. R.C.P. 1042.3(a). Unlike the requirement of notice which, as the Majority acknowledges, may be enhanced by detailed fact pleading, the merit certification process bears no necessary relationship to the defendant’s knowledge of the claim. In point of fact, the reason for the rule is served only if a plaintiff’s filings (albeit technically deficient) establish that the plaintiffs claims are sufficiently meritorious in the opinion of an appropriate medical professional to subject the defendant medical professional to litigation on those claims. Neither the complaint itself, no matter how detailed, nor the extent of the defendant’s prior knowledge of the allegations can serve this purpose. Any other conclusion, in my opinion, attempts to substitute one requirement for another, in short, to place a square peg into a round hole. The necessary distinction, I believe, is inherent in our decision in Harris.
¶ 6 In Harris, unlike in this case, the plaintiff filed a certificate beyond the sixty-day window allowed by Rule 1042.3(a) and the trial court entered a judgment of non pros pursuant to Rule 1042.6. See 877 A.2d at 1278. The form of the certificate was not at issue and appears to have complied with the appropriate subsection of the Rule. The trial court deemed the certificate compliant, first, because the plaintiff filed an immediate motion to open the court’s judgment of non-pros and, second, because the plaintiffs accompanying filings demonstrated the substantive merit of the plaintiff’s action. See id. Significantly, those filings included the written statements of the “appropriate licensed professional[s]” on whom counsel had relied in filing the action, along with their respective curricula vitae. See id. Given the established substance of the claims, as documented in those statements, the record bore witness that the purpose underlying the rule, to prevent commencement of frivolous lawsuits, had been met. Accordingly, the trial court, and we, could focus on whether the plaintiff had reasonably explained his lack of compliance with Rule 1042.3.
¶ 7 In this case, by contrast, we have no occasion to consider the reasonableness of the plaintiffs excuse (or lack thereof) because substantial compliance with the appropriate section of the rule, in this case Rule 1042.3(a)(2) and (b), has not been shown. Kennedy’s certificate is facially inconsistent with subsection (a)(2), which clearly contemplates vicarious liability claims (i.e., “claim[s] that the defendant deviated from an acceptable professional standard ... based solely on allegations *1050that other licensed professionals for whom this defendant is responsible deviated from an acceptable professional standard”), and from subsection (b)(2), which contemplates multiple claims. Moreover, it appears to comport with subsection (a)(1), which on its face applies only to claims of direct liability. More importantly, unlike Harris, where the statements of the licensed professionals underlying the claims were filed of record along with an untimely certificate, Kennedy filed only a boilerplate certificate signed by plaintiffs counsel and unsubstantiated by expert opinion. Consequently, nothing in the record substantiates that Kennedy’s claims are even plausible. Kennedy’s effort does not parallel the plaintiffs offering in Harris and, accordingly, cannot be deemed in “substantial compliance” with Rule 1042.3. Indeed, it fails entirely to satisfy the reason for the Rule.
¶ 8 Consequently, I can derive no basis upon which to find Kennedy’s certificates substantially compliant with the purpose underlying Rule 1042.3. Thus, I cannot conclude that the trial court erred in dismissing Kennedy’s vicarious liability claim on the basis of her defective certificate of merit. Because the Majority would reverse the trial court’s order on a finding that Kennedy’s certificates are both technically and substantially compliant, I respectfully register my dissent.