Court Opinion

ID: 9624518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:06:43.999884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:48.641487
License: Public Domain

*55ANDREWS, Presiding Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Betty Lyon filed a medical malpractice action on August 29, 2006, alleging that, during the course of her treatment by Joseph H. Barnes, M.D., Thomas E. Sharon, M.D., and C. Steven Schramm, M.D., all three physicians knew or should have known that she did not have a spleen,5 and that they negligently failed to advise her about the risk of an overwhelming post-splenectomy infection (OPSI) she faced as a result of living without a spleen and the preventative measures she could have taken to reduce the risk.6 Ms. Lyon alleged that, without this knowledge, she “lived with an avoidably high risk” of contracting OPSI, and that beginning in September 2004, she eventually developed OPSI and ensuing complications that resulted in amputation of parts of her arms and legs. Ms. Lyon’s husband joined in the action asserting a loss of consortium claim.
All three physicians moved for dismissal on the basis of the statute of repose in OCGA § 9-3-71 (b), which provides that “in no event may an action for medical malpractice be brought more than five years after the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred.” Ms. Lyon contends that each physician negligently failed to advise her during courses of treatment given to her by Dr. Barnes from December 1997 to September 2004; by Dr. Sharon from March 1999 to September 2004; and by Dr. Schramm from May 2000 to September 2004. Because Ms. Lyon’s August 2006 medical malpractice action for injury arising from the alleged negligence was filed more than five years after the occurrence of the first alleged negligent omission by each physician, the trial court correctly found that the action against all three physicians was barred by the five-year statute of repose in OCGA § 9-3-71 (b). Kaminer v. Canas, 282 Ga. 830, 837-838 (653 SE2d 691) (2007).
In Kaminer, the Supreme Court reversed this Court’s decision in Canas v. Al-Jabi, 282 Ga. App. 764, 776-777 (639 SE2d 494) (2006), rev’d, Kaminer, supra, which dealt with the operation of the five-year statute of repose in OCGA § 9-3-71 (b) in a similar claim based on serial medical negligence by two physicians (repeated misdiagnosis), which occurred over the course of treating a patient with an underlying AIDS condition. Dr. Kaminer’s course of treatment began *56in May 1991 and ended when she last saw the patient on February 15, 2001, and Dr. Al-Jabi’s course of treatment began in May 1993 and ended when he last saw the patient on March 15, 2000. Kaminer, 282 Ga. at 830; Al-Jabi, 282 Ga. App. at 768-769. In a medical malpractice action filed on December 18, 2001, the patient alleged injury as a result of repeated acts of negligent failure to diagnose the AIDS condition over the course of treatment by each physician. Kaminer, 282 Ga. at 830. The Supreme Court held that the five-year period of repose commenced to run from the first act of negligence (misdiagnosis) by each physician, not from subsequent negligent acts occurring during the course of treatment. Id. at 837-838. Accordingly, when the Supreme Court held that “the statute of repose . . . has run on [the patient’s] claim for the negligent failure to diagnose his AIDS condition,” the Court ruled that expiration of the five-year repose period abolished the entire cause of action, including negligent omissions by the physicians that occurred when they saw the patient within five years of the date the action was filed. Id. at 838. Moreover, in approving a portion of the analysis in the Al-Jabi opinion, Kaminer held that this Court correctly found “that the commencement of that five-year period of limitation [in OCGA § 9-3-71 (b)] was not tolled until such time as [the physicians] ceased to occupy the status of treating physicians. Canas v. Al-Jabi, supra at 776-778 (1) (a).” Kaminer, 282 Ga. App. at 838. As we noted in Al-Jabi on this point,
if the General Assembly intended for the medical malpractice statute of repose to abrogate only those medical malpractice actions filed more than five years after the date on which the negligent or wrongful act or omission occurred and more than five years after the date on which treatment by the health care provider ended, it could have so provided.
(Emphasis in original.) Al-Jabi, 282 Ga. App. at 776.
The five-year statute of repose in OCGA § 9-3-71 (b) runs from the alleged negligent act, is not tolled for any reason, and abolishes a cause of action after expiration of the limitation period whether or not an injury has occurred and the cause of action has accrued. Simmons v. Sonyika, 279 Ga. 378, 380 (614 SE2d 27) (2005); Wright v. Robinson, 262 Ga. 844, 845 (426 SE2d 870) (1993). Because the statute of repose expired as to all three physicians before the medical malpractice action was filed, the trial court correctly dismissed all three physicians from the malpractice action (and from the derivative loss of consortium claim), and correctly dismissed the physicians’ professional corporations from the malpractice action (and from the derivative loss of consortium claim) to the extent the claims *57against the corporations were based on vicarious liability for the alleged malpractice of the physicians.
Decided March 27, 2008
Reconsideration denied April 11, 2008
Ragland & Jones, Daniel A. Ragland, for appellants.
Greenberg Traurig, Thomas J. Mazziotti, John B. Merchant III, Fain, Major & Brennan, Richard W. Brown, Peters & Monyak, Jonathan C. Peters, Jeffrey S. Bazinet, for appellees.
I agree with the majority opinion to the extent it affirms portions of the trial court’s order denying dismissal to other defendants in the action not involved in this appeal.
For these reasons, I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Blackburn and Judge Mikell join in this opinion.

 The record shows that Ms. Lyon had her spleen surgically removed in 1982 at the age of 18 as a result of injuries she suffered in an automobile accident.

 The professional corporation that employed Dr. Barnes and Dr. Sharon, and the professional corporation that employed Dr. Schramm were also named as defendants on the basis that they were liable under the principle of respondeat superior for the alleged malpractice of the physician employees.