Dignity Health v. Dist. Ct. (Baxter) ( 2014 )

 district court is obligated to dismiss an action." Smith v. Eighth Judicial
Dist. Court, 113 Nev. 1343, 1344-45, 950 P.2d 280, 281 (1997). Because no
disputed factual issues exist and the district court was obligated to
dismiss this action pursuant to clear authority, we exercise our discretion
to consider this petition. Id.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Real party in interest William Nathan Baxter was admitted to
St. Rose Dominican Hospital on August 16, 2012. Baxter was transferred
to Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California, on August 21, 2012, and
was later transferred to a third hospital. On January 27, 2014, Baxter
filed a complaint alleging medical malpractice against St. Rose, petitioners
Brian Lipman, M.D., DuIce Quiroz, M.D., Scott Selco, M.D., Syed
Akbarullah, M.D., Shalini Bhatia, D.O.. Jessica Gordon, D.O., and Nerie
Jamison, DNP, who treated Baxter at St. Rose, and petitioner IPC The
Hospitalist Company, Inc., the employer of Bhatia, Gordon, and Jamison.
The complaint states that "Plaintiff, in the exercise of reasonable
diligence, could not have discovered that his injuries may have been the
result of negligence until in or about December 2012, when copies of
Plaintiffs medical records were obtained on Plaintiffs behalf."
Attached to the complaint was the affidavit of Baxter's
medical expert, Joseph Cadden, M.D. Although this affidavit states that
Cadden reviewed Baxter's medical records from St. Rose as well as the two
hospitals that Baxter was admitted to after he was transferred from St.
Rose, the affidavit discusses only the treatment received by Baxter at St.
Rose in determining that petitioners fell below the applicable standard of
care in treating Baxter. Petitioners filed motions to dismiss in the district
court, arguing that Baxter failed to file his complaint within one year after
he discovered, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have
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discovered the injury, as is required by NRS 41A.097. Baxter argued in
opposition that he was not aware that he had a claim against petitioners
until he received Cadden's expert affidavit on August 16, 2013, and thus,
NRS 41A.097's one-year statute of limitations did not begin to run until
that date. The district court denied the motions to dismiss, and this
petition followed.
NRS 41A.097(2) provides that "an action for injury. . . against
a provider of health care may not be commenced more than . . . 1 year
after the plaintiff discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence
should have discovered the injury. . . ." This court explained in Massey v.
Litton, 99 Nev. 723, 726-28, 669 P.2d 248, 250-52 (1983), that NRS
41A.097(2)'s one-year limitation period is a statutory discovery rule that
begins to run when a plaintiff "knows or, through the use of reasonable
diligence, should have known of facts that would put a reasonable person
on inquiry notice of his cause of action." This court further explained that
the term "injury," as used in the one-year limitation period, encompasses a
plaintiffs discovery of damages as well as discovery of the negligent cause
of the damages. Id. at 728, 669 P.2d at 252.
Petitioners argue, among other things, that Baxter knew as of
the date he received his medical records from St. Rose in December 2012
that he may have a claim against petitioners, and thus, his January 27,
2014, complaint was untimely. In addition to the arguments made in the
district court, Baxter contends that, although he received his St. Rose
medical records in December 2012, he did not receive the medical records
from the two hospitals to which he was transferred after he left St. Rose
until June 2013. Because those medical records were necessary to
determine the cause of his injury, Baxter argues, the one-year statute of
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limitations did not begin to run until June 2013, and thus, his January
2014 complaint was timely.
Having considered the parties' briefs and appendices, we
conclude that Baxter's one-year statute of limitations began to run against
petitioners when he received the medical records from St. Rose. See Winn
v. Sunrise Hosp. & Med. Ctr., 128 Nev. „ 277 P.3d 458, 462-63
(2012) (concluding that the accrual date for a statute of limitations is a
question of law when the facts are uncontroverted). It is uncontroverted
that Baxter received his medical records from St. Rose by no later than
December 2012. And a review of Cadden's expert affidavit shows that,
although the affidavit references that Cadden reviewed the medical
records obtained from the two other hospitals to which Baxter was
transferred, Cadden's conclusions that petitioners fell below the applicable
standard of care in their treatment of Baxter are derived from the St. Rose
records. 1
When he received the St. Rose medical records, Baxter had
already retained an attorney and "had access to facts that would have led
an ordinarily prudent person to investigate further into whether [his]
injury may have been caused by someone's negligence," id. at , 277 P.3d
at 463, and therefore, he was on inquiry notice of his potential claims
'In his conclusions regarding how petitioner Gordon fell below the
applicable standard of care, Cadden does reference records obtained from
Scripps Green Hospital. Based on the additional documents submitted by
Baxter in his appendix to his answer to this petition, however, it is evident
that most of the alleged actions on which Cadden bases his opinion that
Gordon fell below the standard of care are based on records obtained from
St. Rose. Baxter was therefore on inquiry notice of his claim against
Gordon at the time that he obtained the St. Rose records. Winn, 128 Nev.
at , 277 P.3d at 463; Massey, 99 Nev. at 726-28, 669 P.2d at 250-52.
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against petitioners no later than December 2012, and thus, his January
27, 2014, complaint was untimely. The district court therefore erred in
denying petitioners' motions to dismiss. Accordingly, we
ORDER the petition GRANTED AND DIRECT THE CLERK
OF THIS COURT TO ISSUE A WRIT OF MANDAMUS instructing the
district court to grant petitioners' motions to dismiss and to dismiss real
party in interest's complaint. 2
J.
Hardesty
.c)c=iLA-1 (2,3 J.
Douglas Cherry
cc: Hon. Douglas Smith, District Judge
Carroll, Kelly, Trotter, Franzen, & McKenna
Alverson Taylor Mortensen & Sanders
John H. Cotton & Associates, Ltd.
Lemons, Grundy & Eisenberg
Cogburn Law Offices
Schuering Zimmerman & Doyle LLP
Gary Logan
Kenneth M. Sigelman & Associates
Eighth District Court Clerk
2 In light of this order, we deny as moot petitioners' emergency
motion for a stay of the district court proceedings. Additionally, having
considered Baxter's August 13, 2014, motion to include correspondence in
his appendix, we grant the requested relief. The appendix at issue in the
motion was already filed by the clerk of this court on August 26, 2014.
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