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Neal v. Yang9/30/2004
UNPUBLISHED
Plaintiff, Lorraine Neal, filed this medical malpractice action for the injuries sustained by plaintiff's decedent, Samantha Neal, at the time of her birth. Plaintiff initially sued the attending obstetrician, Albert C. Yang, M.D.; the hospital, Provena Health, d/b/a St. Therese Medical Center; and nurse, Constance Fossler. Plaintiff subsequently amended the complaint to add pediatrician, Manoochehr Sharifi, M.D.; and defendant, Michelle Lee, M.D., who answered an urgent call for help in resuscitating the unresponsive newborn. The trial court granted defendant summary judgment on the theory that her conduct was immunized under section 25 of the Good Samaritan Act (Act) (745 ILCS 49/25 (West 1996)). The remaining defendants were dismissed from the action and are not parties to this appeal. Plaintiff appeals, arguing that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment. She contends that defendant was the on-call physician obligated by contract to provide medical care to Samantha and that, in order to obtain immunity under the Act, defendant was required to prove the absence of a pre-existing duty to render care. For the reasons that follow, we hold that, under the plain language of section 25 of the Act, there is no requirement that a physician prove the absence of a pre-existing duty to render care to a patient; rather, the physician's pre-existing duty to render care is relevant only to how much notice the physician had of the illness. Because plaintiff concedes that defendant satisfied the requisite elements under section 25, we affirm the judgment.
FACTS
The following facts are undisputed. On November 1, 1996, plaintiff went to St. Therese Medical Center for delivery of her first child, Samantha. She did not have a private obstetrician for purposes of delivery. All physicians with staff privileges at St. Therese were required to be on call and available to treat patients who were admitted to St. Therese and did not have their own doctors. Albert Yang was the on-call obstetrician on November 1, 1996, and was required to deliver Samantha.
On the date of the occurrence, defendant was an employee of St. Therese Anesthesiology Associates, which had entered into a contract with St. Therese Medical Center for exclusive privileges to provide anesthesia services to the hospital's patients. Pursuant to the contract, St. Therese Anesthesiology Associates agreed to provide board certified or certification-eligible anesthesiologists on a 24-hour, 7-day-per-week basis, "to render all services and perform all anesthesia duties customarily performed by anesthesiologists *, so as to effectively serve the needs of the patients and professional staff of the hospital." The contract required one anesthesiologist to be in the hospital at all times, another to be on call at all times, and at least one to be physically present in the hospital on weekdays to cover surgeries.
On November 1, 1996, defendant finished her elective surgical cases at 3:30 p.m. and went home. She was called back to the hospital to provide anesthesia service for a patient in labor and was administering an epidural anesthesia to the patient at the time Dr. Yang and members of the hospital staff were in a nearby labor and delivery room attempting a forceps delivery of Samantha. Defendant was not aware of Samantha's delivery or of the ensuing complications.
During plaintiff's labor, a fetal monitoring device indicated that Samantha's heart was in fetal distress. Dr. Yang repeatedly used forceps in an effort to deliver Samantha. When he was unsuccessful with the multiple forceps applications, he applied a vacuum suction device to facilitate the delivery. Despite the possib
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