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Labelle v. McKay Dee Hospital Center2/20/2004
Helen Labelle and her sisters, the daughters and heirs of Norma Mary Harriman, sued McKay-Dee Hospital Center, Intermountain Health Care, Drs. Wright, Vonk, and Rankin, and other unnamed health care providers for medical malpractice. The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the suit on the grounds that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case, because the Harriman heirs had failed to mail a copy of the request for prelitigation hearing to the defendants, as required by section 78-14-12(2)(b) of the Utah Health Care Malpractice Act. Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-12(2)(b) (2002). The Harriman heirs appealed. We reverse.
On February 20, 1999, Mrs. Harriman went to the emergency room of McKay-Dee Hospital with an inflamed knee and a head injury. She was attended to by the emergency room staff and Drs. Wright and Rankin, who consulted by telephone with Dr. Vonk, Mrs. Harriman's primary health care provider. The physicians examined Mrs. Harriman, drained fluid from her knee, and released her. Mrs. Harriman's condition deteriorated, resulting in another emergency room visit on February 24, 1999. This time Mrs. Harriman was admitted to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a severe staphylococcus infection. Mrs. Harriman remained as a patient at McKay-Dee Hospital until March 3, 1999, when she died.
Believing that the negligence of the health care providers caused their mother's death, the Harriman heirs sought legal relief under the Utah Health Care Malpractice Act, Utah Code Ann. §§ 78-14-1 to -17 (2002). The Medical Malpractice Act imposes procedural requirements on claimants which, in their scope, set persons with medical malpractice claims apart from other tort claimants. These mandates, commonly known as "prelitigation procedures," are a central feature of the Medical Malpractice Act, enacted to further the Act's goal "to expedite early evaluation and settlement of claims." Utah Code Ann. §78-14-2.
Two of the prelitigation procedures created by the Medical Malpractice Act stand out because they have been expressly designated as preconditions to invoking the jurisdiction of the district court: the notice of intent to commence action, and the prelitigation hearing. Utah Code Ann. §§ 78-14-8, -12.
On February 14, 2001, the Harriman heirs complied with the first of these preconditions by sending a notice of intent to commence an action to the health care providers believed to have provided Mrs. Harriman with deficient care.
This appeal concerns the Medical Malpractice Act's second procedure with jurisdictional implications, the prelitigation hearing. At issue is whether the Harriman heirs' failure to mail a copy of the request for that hearing, as required by the Malpractice Act, divested the district court of subject matter jurisdiction to consider the lawsuit. The district court held that the requirement that notice be mailed to the health care providers was governed by section 78-14-12(1)(c) of the Malpractice Act, which states: "The proceedings are informal, non-binding, and are not subject to Title 63, Chapter 46b, Administrative Procedures Act, but are compulsory as a condition precedent to commencing litigation." The district court agreed with the health care providers that as a consequence of the Harriman heirs' failure to mail the notice, the litigation had not commenced and the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the matter. Because the mailing requirement is not part of the "proceedings" as that term is used in section 78-14-12(1)(c), we hold that failure to comply with it does not affect the district court's subject matter jurisdiction.
This outcome reflects the integ
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