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Redfield v. Mt. Sinai Medical Center3/5/1992
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED.
The consolidated appeals sub judice arise from two related actions with lengthy procedural histories. These cases have twice been dismissed by the Eighth District Court of Appeals for failure to grant this Court jurisdiction in compliance with Civ. R. 54(B). On November 19, 1991 this Court granted defendants' motion to reinstate these appeals after the trial court on November 6, 1991 clarified its prior orders to dispose of all the parties and all the claims in the two cases consolidated in the trial court.
The appeals involve two related cases filed after the death of Yvonne Redfield ("decedent"); death occurred in the late stages of pregnancy at the Mt. Sinai Medical Center ("Mt. Sinai"). The same five defendants, viz., Mt. Sinai and Doctors Miller, a hematologist, Kiwi, Utian and Goldfarb, all obstetricians/gynecologists, were named in each case.
Case No. CV-137534 was filed by Bernard Redfield individually and in the alleged capacity as administrator of decedent's estate on October 8, 1987. Plaintiffs maintain this is a medical malpractice action (the "Medical Malpractice Case"). The appeal from this case has been designated Court of Appeals Case Number 59292.
Case No. CV-148302 was subsequently filed on April 18, 1988, exactly two years after decedent's death, by Bernard Redfield individually and in the alleged capacity as administrator of decedent's estate, with Malcolm Redfield, decedent's son, and Norman Jackson, Sr., decedent's father, as additional plaintiffs. Plaintiffs maintain this is a wrongful death action (the "Wrongful Death Case"). The appeal from this case has been designated Court of Appeals Case Number 59275.
The Wrongful Death Case was not originally assigned to the same judge as the prior Medical Malpractice Case based on representations by plaintiffs' counsel in the designation and certification sheets filed with the Wrongful Death complaint that the action was not "related" to the prior Medical Malpractice Case pending against the same five defendants.
The five defendants failed to file timely answers in the Wrongful Death Case because they had received, and subsequently answered, an amended complaint in the Medical Malpractice Case containing essentially verbatim substantive allegations four days earlier.
After plaintiffs made a motion for default judgment in the Wrongful Death Case, all five defendants sought leave to file and subsequently filed answers denying liability in the Wrongful Death Case. Defendants, thereafter, filed a joint motion to dismiss or strike the Wrongful Death complaint and for sanctions against plaintiffs' counsel, Robert O. Garnett, under Civ. R. 11.
At a hearing conducted by the trial court on this motion in the Wrongful Death Case, the trial court granted all five defendants leave to answer the Wrongful Death complaint, denied plaintiffs' motion for default judgment on the Wrongful Death complaint, imposed $1,200 in attorneys fees as sanctions against plaintiffs' counsel, and ordered the Wrongful Death Case transferred and consolidated with the prior Medical Malpractice Case.
The docket sheets in each case indicate the actions were subsequently consolidated in the trial court. Plaintiffs filed motions for partial summary judgment in the trial court in both cases and each defendant filed cross-motions for summary judgment in both cases. Drs. Kiwi, Utian and Goldfarb also filed joint motions to dismiss the complaint against them in each case.
The trial court granted all five defendants' motions for summary judgment in the Wrongful Death Case in an order journalized January 16, 1990. The trial court gra
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