New Health Care Liability Action Opinion: Trial Court's Dismissal of Plaintiff's Case Upheld on Appeal Due to Noncompliance with Statutory Presuit-notice Requirements

The Tennessee Court of Appeals recently released its decision in Woods v. Arthur, No. W2019-01936-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 23, 2021).  The syllabus from the slip opinion reads:

This appeal concerns the dismissal of a health care liability action for failure to comply with a pre-suit notice content requirement in Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-29-121(a)(2). The trial court determined that the plaintiff failed to provide the defendant doctors and hospital with medical authorization forms that would permit pre-suit investigation of his claims. The plaintiff contends the dismissal was unwarranted because the medical authorizations substantially complied with the statute and the defendants already had the relevant records. The defendants argue that the forms were invalid because they lacked several required elements, including a description of the purpose for which the records could be disclosed and used. We affirm.

Here is a link to the slip opinion: 

https://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/woodsarthuropn_3.pdf.

NOTE: As I have noted in the past, an authorization may not be needed for the defendants to share medical records.  If that ends up being true, all these decision holding that a case should be dismissed due to some defect in an authorization are wrongly decided.  Tony Duncan, New Health Care Liability Action Opinion: Trial Court's Dismissal of Action as Time-barred Overturned on Appeal, TONY DUNCAN L. BLOG, Note (Jul. 3, 2018, 3:58 PM), http://theduncanlawfirm.blogspot.com/2018/07/new-health-care-liability-action.html.