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Bassie v. Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates of Northwest Alabama3/8/2002
The issue on appeal is whether a personal-injury action may be maintained on behalf of a plaintiff who has been declared "brain dead" under § 22-31-1, Ala. Code 1975, as it read before it was amended effective July 1, 2000. We affirm the summary judgment for the defendants.
In January 2000, Deborah Bassie was admitted to Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital for the delivery of her child. She suffered complications during the delivery and died. There is no dispute that Deborah was "brain dead," as that condition is defined by former § 22-31-1, Ala. Code 1975, before personal-injury claims were filed on her behalf on April 14, 2000. Mechanical ventilation and cardiac support were removed on April 21, 2000; Deborah's cardiac and respiratory functions then ceased.
In the April 14, 2000, action, Timothy Bassie ("Bassie"), as her husband and next friend, alleged that the defendants had been negligent and/or wanton, and that their negligence and/or wantonness had caused Deborah's personal injuries that ultimately led to her death. The defendants included two of Deborah's doctors, M.H. Aldridge, M.D., and B.J. Moody, M.D., and Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates of Northwest Alabama, P.C. On December 8, 2000, Bassie amended his complaint to add a claim for wrongful-death.
The defendants filed a motion for a summary judgment as to the personal-injury claims. After a hearing on April 25, 2001, the trial court issued an order on May 9, 2001; that order stated, in relevant part:
"It appears that there is no dispute that the plaintiff had suffered a 'brain death' prior to the filing of the action. Alabama Code Section 22-31-1 therefore declares that she was 'medically and legally dead.' Therefore, the plaintiff had died for legal purposes prior to the filing of the suit for the personal injury claims."
Accordingly, the trial court entered a "partial summary judgment ... to the defendants with respect to the personal injury claims of Deborah Bassie and these claims are dismissed." The trial court certified the judgment as final. See Rule 54(b), Ala. R. Civ. P.
On appeal, Bassie claims the trial court erred in holding that the fact that Deborah was "brain dead" for purposes of former § 22-31-1 precluded his pursuing the personal-injury claims on her behalf. Bassie argues that, rather than the definition of death in former § 22-31-1, the common-law definition of death should prevail, or, in the alternative, that the intent of former § 22-31-1 was not to determine the timeliness or viability of a personal-injury action; to read it to do so, he argues, produces the "absurd result" that a "brain-dead" patient could incur medical expenses but lack the right to bring a cause of action to recover those medical expenses from an alleged tortfeasor. The defendants argue that the plain and unambiguous language of former § 22-31-1 compels the conclusion that "death" within that statutory definition precludes the filing of a personal-injury claim on behalf of the deceased, regardless of the purported absurdity of any result.
In Alabama, a deceased's unfiled tort claims do not survive the death of the putative plaintiff. Section 6-5-462, Ala. Code 1975; see also Georgia Cas. & Surety Co. v. White, 582 So. 2d 487, 491 (Ala. 1991). When Bassie filed this action and Deborah was on life-support equipment, her "death" was determined according to § 22-31-1:
"(a) A person is considered medically and legally dead if, in the opinion of a medical doctor licensed in Alabama, based on usual and customary standards of medical practice, in the community, there is no spontaneous respiratory or cardiac function and there is no expectation of recovery o
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