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Delaney v. Baker3/4/1999
that the plaintiff has established that there is a substantial probability that the plaintiff will prevail on the claim pursuant to Section 3294 of the Civil Code." The Central Pathology court considered whether section 425.13 (a) applied in a case against health care providers that alleged both medical negligence and intentional torts (intentional infliction of emotional distress and fraud) in connection with a failure to timely alert plaintiff to the onset of her cancer.
The court began with an inquiry into the language of the statute. It first noted that "professional negligence" was defined by MICRA, as discussed above, as " `a negligent act or omission to act by a health care provider in the rendering of professional services.' " (Central Pathology, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 187.) The court then turned to the meaning of the phrase "arising out of." The court found the phrase "arising out of" had been equated with "origination, growth or flow from the event" but stated that it was "unclear whether the intentional tort causes of action in this case may be said to originate, grow, or flow from "professional negligence." (Id. at p. 188.) Because the question before the court was not resolved by examination of the language of the statute, it then turned to its legislative history. (Central Pathology, supra, 3 Cal.4th at pp. 188-192.)
The legislative history revealed that section 425.13, as originally passed in 1987, had simply applied to all claims against health care providers. (Central Pathology, supra, 3 Cal.4th at pp. 188-189.) When that section was amended in 1988, the court observed, the comment of the Assembly Subcommittee on the Administration of Justice stated: " `This bill is intended to correct an oversight. As written, Section 4215.13 could apply to any lawsuit against any health care provider . . . . Arguably, this could include lawsuits unrelated to the practitioner's practice, such as defamation, fraud, and intentional torts. [ ] The author [of the original version of section 425.13] asserts that the intention . . . was to provide protection to health practitioners in their capacity as practitioners. Specifically, relief was sought from unsubstantiated claims of punitive damages in actions alleging professional negligence. There was no intent to protect practitioners in any other capacity. [The amendment] limits the application of Section [425.13(a)] to lawsuits involving allegations of a health practitioner's `professional negligence.' " (Central Pathology, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 189, italics added by Central Pathology court.)
The Central Pathology court then concluded "The Assembly subcommittee's comment emphasizes that lawsuits unrelated to a practitioner's conduct in providing health care related services were intended to be excluded from the ambit of section 425.13. Plaintiffs contend that the inclusion of the term `intentional torts' in the list of lawsuits assumed to be unrelated to the practitioner's practice demonstrates that the Legislature intended to exclude all intentional torts from the requirements of section 425.13. From our review of the history of the statute, however, we conclude that the reference to `intentional torts' by the author of the comments does not belie its statement of the essential purpose of the amendment - to restrict the application of section 425.13 to lawsuits brought against health practitioners `in their capacity as practitioners.' " (3 Cal.4th at p. 190.)
The Central Pathology court's reasoning was based on an examination not only of the particular legislative history of section 425.13 (a), but also of the statute's purposes. As the court stated, "Under [a contrary] reading of section 425.13(a), injured patients seek
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