Court Opinion

ID: 9725324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:41:11.512357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:14.111372
License: Public Domain

*1011OPINION
BAKER, Chief Judge.
Appellant-respondent Suzanne Eads appeals the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of appellee-petitioner Community Hospital (the Hospital). Eads argues that the trial court erred by concluding that (1) the Journey's Account Statute 2 did not apply to her case and (2) her medical malpractice claim was untimely filed. Finding no error, we affirm.
FACTS
On August 15, 2004, Eads was a patient at the Hospital, having received treatment for an ankle injury. As part of that treatment, Eads's ankle was placed in a cast. Following her treatment, she requested a wheelchair to exit the Hospital, but Hospital personnel refused her request. Instead, a Hospital employee told her that "she could leave the [Hjospital on crutches." Appellant's App. p. 9. As Eads was exiting the Hospital, she passed through the foyer area leading to the garage, where she fell.
On August 8, 2006, Eads filed a complaint against the Hospital in Lake Superi- or Court (the Negligence Complaint). The Negligence Complaint sought damages for injuries to Eads's back and left hand that she alleged she sustained as a result of the Hospital's negligent refusal to provide her with a wheelchair. The Negligence Complaint was filed within the applicable statute of limitations.
On February 21, 2007, the Hospital filed a motion to dismiss the Negligence Complaint without prejudice, arguing that the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction because it was actually a medical malpractice claim that first had to be filed before the Indiana Department of Insurance ("IDOI")3 In response, Eads insisted that her claim was based on a premises liability theory and, as such, was not covered by the Medical Malpractice Act ("MMA")4 The Superior Court agreed with the Hospital and, on April 12, 2007, dismissed the case without prejudice, having found that the Hospital employee's decision to refuse Eads a wheelchair involved medical judgment, which brought the action within the MMA. Eads did not appeal from that order.
On March 26, 2007, just over two weeks before the Superior Court's dismissal of the Negligence Claim, Eads filed a proposed medical malpractice complaint with the IDOI, relying on the same facts recounted in the Negligence Complaint. On February 6, 2008, the Hospital invoked the jurisdiction of the trial court under Indiana Code section 34-18-11-15 when it filed a *1012petition for preliminary determination of law, requesting summary judgment in favor of the Hospital, arguing that the medical malpractice claim was barred as a matter of law because it was filed outside of the two-year statute of limitations.6 Following a hearing, the trial court herein entered an order on June 11, 2008, dismissing Eads's malpractice claim with prejudice:
The Court finds that no genuine issues of material fact exist that would preclude granting a motion for summary judgment under the Trial Rules. Pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 56, Respondent Suzanne Eads claims against Petitioner Community Hospital are barred by the Statute of Limitation{s]. Therefore, Petitioner's Petition for Determination of Summary Judgment in favor of Community Hospital is GRANTED. Respondent's claims against Petitioner Community Hospital are hereby dismissed, with prejudice.
Appellant's App. p. 6. Eads now appeals.
DISCUSSION AND DECISION
Our standard of review in this appeal is well settled.
"A motion for preliminary determination, when accompanied by evidentiary matters, is akin to a motion for summary judgment and is subject to the same standard of appellate review as any other summary judgment disposition. Upon review of a summary judgment determination, we apply the same standard applied by the trial court: where the evidence shows that there are no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law, summary judgment is appropriate. We construe all facts and reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in a light most favorable to the non-moving party."
Fairbanks Hosp. v. Harrold, 895 N.E.2d 732, 735 (Ind.Ct.App.2008) (quoting Battema v. Booth, 853 N.E.2d 1014, 1018-19 (Ind.Ct.App.2006)). trans. demied. The affirmative defense that the statute of limitations has run is particularly suitable as a basis for summary judgment. McGill v. Ling, 801 N.E.2d 678, 682 (Ind.Ct.App.2004).
It is undisputed that Eads filed her malpractice claim with the IDOI after the applicable two-year statute of limitations had run. To rescue her claim, Eads direets our attention to the Journey's Account Statute.
The Journey's Account Statute provides as follows:
(a) This section applies if a plaintiff commences an action and:
(1) the plaintiff fails in the action from any cause except negligence in the prosecution of the action;
(2) the action abates or is defeated by the death of a party; or
(3) a judgment is arrested or reversed on appeal.
(b) If subsection (a) applies, a new action may be brought not later than the later of:
(1) three (8) years after the date of the determination under subsection (a); or
(2) the last date an action could have been commenced under the statute of limitations governing the original action;
and be considered a continuation of | the original action commenced by the plaintiff.
*1013I.C. § 34-11-8-1. The purpose of the Journey's Account Statute is to preserve the right of a diligent suitor to pursue a judgment on the merits. Keenan v. Butler, 869 N.E.2d 1284, 1290 (Ind.Ct.App.2007). The statute is to be liberally construed to protect such diligent suitors. Vesolowski v. Repay, 520 N.E.2d 433, 434 (Ind.1988).
As our Supreme Court has explained,
The Journey's Account Statute applies by its terms to preserve only a "new action" that may be "a continuation of the first." Its typical use is to save an action filed in the wrong court by allowing the plaintiff enough time to refile the same claim in the correct forum. For example, the statute enables an action dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction in one state to be refiled in another state despite the intervening running of the statute of limitations.
Cox v. Am. Aggregates Corp., 684 N.E.2d 193, 195 (Ind.1997). Therefore, if Eads's malpractice claim is to be reseued by the Journey's Account Statute, she must establish, among other things, that her malpractice claim is a continuation of the Negligence Complaint.
In McGill, the plaintiff filed federal and state complaints seeking recovery for negligence, gross negligence, and civil rights violations. 801 N.E.2d at 686. After those complaints were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, McGill filed a proposed medical malpractice complaint with the IDOI after the two-year statute of limitations had run. The defendants filed a motion for preliminary determination of law. The trial court eventually granted summary judgment in the defendants' favor because, among other things, the Journey's Account Statute did not save the claim. On appeal, this court agreed with the trial court:
Here, ... McGill's proposed medical malpractice complaint is not a continuation of her class action claims. While McGill's [negligence and civil rights] complaints share similarities with her proposed [medical malpractice] complaint, those similarities are not sufficient to save her proposed complaint. McGill's federal and state court class actions sought recovery for alleged negligence, gross negligence and civil rights violations under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. McGill did not allege a claim for medical malpractice in those suits. Indeed, unlike the language contained in her proposed medical malpractice complaint, McGill's federal and state class action complaints make no mention of the requisite "standard of care" for medical providers in the community, nor does she allege that the Defendants' care and treatment of her husband fell below that standard of care. See Oelling v. Rao, 593 N.E.2d 189, 190 (Ind.1992) (stating plaintiff in medical malpractice action must allege, in part, that defendant failed to conform to requisite standard of care).
In addition, under the Indiana Malpractice Act, McGill was required to file her proposed complaint for malpractice with the Department of Insurance before she could pursue litigation of her medical malpractice claims in any court, state or federal. See Ind.Code § 34-18-7T-1(b)....
Further, our supreme court has held that the Journey's Account Statute applies to medical malpractice actions. Vesolowski, 520 N.E.2d at 485. In that case, the court determined that the Journey's Account Statute applied to a medical malpractice claim which had been untimely filed in Indiana, where the victim of the alleged malpractice had timely filed a malpractice claim in Illinois. Id. But we cannot extend the *1014holding in Vesolowski to the cireum-stances here. As we have stated, this is not a case where McGill filed an imitial medical malpractice complaint in a timely manner in the wrong forum, and then later refiled that same complaint in the proper forum. Rather, she first filed class actions complaints, which did mot raise medical malpractice claims, and only later filed her proposed complaint in the proper forum, the Department of Insurance. Because McGill did not file her proposed complaint within two years from the date the alleged malpractice occurred, her claim is barred. See 1.C. § 34-18-7-1(b). ...
McGill, 801 N.E.2d at 686-87 (some emphases original, some added) (internal footnotes omitted).
Here, as in McGill, Eads did not file an initial medical malpractice complaint in a timely manner in the wrong forum. To the contrary, she filed the Negligence Complaint and vigorously disputed the Hospital's suggestion that her complaint sounded in medical malpractice rather than negligence, waiting to file the malpractice claim with the IDOI until two weeks before the trial court dismissed the Negligence Complaint for lack of jurisdiction.
If Eads believed that her claim sounded in general negligence, then the trial court's dismissal of her complaint must have been incorrect and she should have appealed that judgment. She did not. If she believed that her claim could feasibly have sounded either in general negligence or in medical malpractice, then she should have filed in the alternative in a timely fashion. She did not.7
Although it is true that the factual predicate of and parties involved in Eads's medical malpractice claim are identical to those involved in the Negligence Complaint, the actual claim-the source of the alleged liability-is wholly different. There is a basic distinction between a common law claim of negligence and the statutory medical malpractice regime. Thus, whatever the similarities may be, there is a fundamental difference that prevents the application of the Journey's Account Statute. To hold otherwise would permit plaintiffs an untimely second bite at the apple, and we do not believe that to be the intent of the legislature in crafting the statute.
Inasmuch as we have found that the medical malpractice claim is not a continuation of the Negligence Complaint, the Journey's Account Statute does not apply. Therefore, we are left with a medical malpractice claim that was untimely filed with the IDOI outside the statute of limitations, and we find that the trial court properly granted summary judgment in the Hospital's favor.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
NAJAM, J., concurs.
KIRSCH, J., dissents with opinion.

. Ind.Code § 34-11-8-1.

. The record before us does not contain the Hospital's motion to dismiss. Therefore, we must glean the contenis of that motion from the briefs of the Appellant and Appellee. Appellant's Br. p. 2, Appellee's Br. p. 3.

. Ind.Code § 34-18-1-1 et seq. The record before us does not contain Eads's response to the Hospital's motion to dismiss; however, the Superior Court set forth her argument in its "Order of Dismissal Without Prejudice." Appellant's App. p. 16.

. Indiana Code section 34-18-11-1 provides, in pertinent part, as follows:
(a) A court having jurisdiction over the subject matter and the parties to a proposed complaint filed with the commissioner [of the IDOI] may, upon the filing of a copy of the proposed complaint and a written motion under this chapter ... preliminarily determine an affirmative defense or issue of law or fact that may be preliminarily determined under the Indiana Rules of Procedure ...
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(c) The court has jurisdiction to entertain a motion filed under this chapter only during that time after a proposed complaint is filed with the commissioner under this article but before the medical review panel gives the panel's written opinion under IC 34-18-10-22.

. Eads cites to a February 8, 2008, filing date; however, the "docket sheet" reveals a filing date of February 6, 2008. Appellant's App. p. 4, 7.

. Even if we found that the malpractice claim was a continuation of the Negligence Complaint, the Journey's Account Statute would not apply to salvage a plaintiff's medical malpractice claim if she failed to file it first with the IDOI before the statute of limitations expired. Filing with the IDOI is a condition precedent to filing the lawsuit, and the failure to do so could only be seen as negligent. Thus, the Journey's Account Statute would not apply. See I.C. § 34-11-8-1(a)(1) (providing that the statute only applies if "the R plaintiff fails in the action from any cause except negligence in the prosecution of the @ action") (emphasis added).