New Health Care Liability Action Opinion: Trial Court's Dismissal Reversed as to Some Defendants

The Tennessee Court of Appeals just released its opinion in Brookins v. Tabor, No. W2017-00576-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 8, 2018).  The syllabus from the slip opinion states as follows:

A plaintiff filed a health care liability complaint in 2015 against several physicians and entities that he later non-suited in order to comply with the pre-suit notice requirements set forth in Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-121(a). The plaintiff then filed a second complaint against the same defendants, relying on the saving statutes of Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-1- 105 and Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-121(c) to extend his statute of limitations. The plaintiff’s wife joined him as a plaintiff in the second complaint. The defendants filed motions to dismiss, alleging non-compliance with the pre-suit notice requirements and the statute of limitations. The trial court granted all of the defendants’ motions and dismissed the complaint. The plaintiffs appealed the trial court’s dismissal of the complaint against the physicians. Interpreting the complaint liberally and presuming the truth of plaintiffs’ allegations regarding the HIPAA authorizations, we reverse the trial court’s dismissal of the complaint against two of the physicians and affirm the dismissal of the complaint against one of the physicians on statute of limitations grounds. We affirm the trial court’s judgment dismissing the wife’s claims against all of the defendants.

Here is a link to the slip opinion:

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

NOTE: We are blessed to have some really good judges and justices on our appellate courts in Tennessee.  This opinion is one example of why that is the case: it discusses presuit notice in health care liability actions (med mal cases), the saving statute, the discovery rule, etc.  It's a good read in my humble opinion.