Man sues dentist, ends up changing state medical malpractice law
In a surprise move, the Connecticut Supreme Court in mid-February reversed its own precedent regarding a 2005 law requiring certain pre-litigation steps be taken before state residents are permitted to file a medical malpractice claim, as a story in the Claims Journal reports.
In its 2011 review of that earlier law — passed to ensure that complainants had a reasonable basis for their claims — the high court went the legislature one better. It held that state courts had no “personal jurisdiction” in adjudicating malpractice claims in the absence of required supporting documents — specifically, a proper certificate and opinion letter from “a similar healthcare provider.”
For the past 12 years, this meant that any suit lacking the proper documents could not only be halted but dismissed with prejudice, meaning that such a case couldn’t be refiled.
That interpretation of the law was eventually challenged, however, by a Connecticut man who sued his dentist. Filed in 2018, the suit alleged that, during a root canal, the dentist had failed to properly diagnose and treat his patient’s dental abscess, which ultimately required surgery.
Complying with what he regarded as state law, the man attached a letter of opinion to his complaint, which testified to the merits of his claim. But, in a twist with significant consequences, the letter was written by an endodontist, not a general dentist. In response, the dentist’s attorneys submitted a motion to dismiss to the trial court, arguing that the plaintiff had breached the “similar provider” provision and that therefore the opinion letter was defective and the entire suit should be dismissed.
The trial court agreed — and the Connecticut Appellate Court went on to affirm the lower-court ruling. The case might have ended there, but the plaintiff appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court, which agreed to review the appellate court finding.
In a 6-0 decision, the high court looked back on its 2011 interpretation of the med-mal statute, which in the intervening years had given rise to “a body of case law.” The problem with that body of law, the justices argued, was that it had “imposed substantially greater burdens on plaintiffs than the legislature intended” — and it did so “by allowing potentially curable, technical, pre-litigation defects to defeat otherwise meritorious malpractice actions, sometimes after several years of litigation.”
In short, said the justices, there was nothing in the original statute that required a court to dismiss a suit once it found a letter of opinion to be deficient. This was a “curable” defect, one that shouldn’t be allowed to derail an otherwise meritorious claim.
As for the case that prompted the high court’s latest review — that is, the Connecticut man’s suit against his dentist — the justices found that the appellate court had also erred when it tossed out the endodontist’s opinion letter. Technically, the dentist might not have been an endodontist, said the justices, but he had in fact practiced in the field during the course of a long career, so close enough.
The justices kicked the case back to the trial court, with instructions that it deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss.