New Health Care Liability Action Opinion: Trial Court's Dismissal of Claim as Being Time-barred Upheld on Appeal; Plaintiff's Deceased Not "Adjuciated Incompetent" so as to Toll the Statute of Limitations

The Tennessee Court of Appeals just released its opinion in Johnson v. UHS of Lakeside, LLC, No. W2015-01022-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 23, 2015).  The summary from the opinion is as follows:

Plaintiff filed a health care liability action on behalf of her deceased husband. Plaintiff provided pre-suit notice more than one year after the cause of action accrued and subsequently filed a complaint. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss based on the applicable one-year statute of limitations. Plaintiff argued that her husband had been “adjudicated incompetent” within the meaning of Tennessee Code Annotated Section 28-1-106 and that the statute of limitations was accordingly tolled. The trial court dismissed Plaintiff‟s case with prejudice finding that the statute unambiguously required a judicial adjudication of incompetency in order to toll the statute of limitations, and Plaintiff‟s husband had not been judicially adjudicated incompetent within the meaning of the statute at the time the cause of action accrued. Discerning no error, we affirm.

Here is a link to the opinion:

http://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/johnsonceoopn.pdf