ST. VINCENT'S MEDICAL CENTER, RELATOR,
v.
HONORABLE THOMAS D. OAKLEY, RESPONDENT
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St. Vincent's Medical Center sought prohibition of circuit court jurisdiction over a plaintiff's complaint alleging false imprisonment and assault without prior submission to a medical liability mediation panel. The court held that the plaintiff's intentional tort claims, though arising from hospital detention and forced medication, fall outside the definition of "malpractice" requiring mediation panel review under Florida law.
The court held that the plaintiff's claims constitute intentional torts (false imprisonment and assault) rather than medical malpractice, and therefore are not subject to the mandatory mediation panel requirement. A plaintiff may plead claims arising from hospital conduct as intentional torts even if the underlying treatment would otherwise be actionable only as malpractice.
[1] A claim for false imprisonment, even if involving allegations of assault through the administration of drugs, does not constitute "malpractice" within the meaning of Flor…
[2] A plaintiff is entitled to plead their claim as they wish, including characterizing medical treatment as an assault during a false imprisonment, rather than as medical ma…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“Any person . . . claiming damages by reason of injury, death, or monetary loss on account of alleged malpractice by any . . . hospital . . . shall submit such claim to an appropriate medical liability mediation panel before that claim may be filed in any court of this state.”
Establishes the statutory requirement for mediation panel submission before filing malpractice claims
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceA hospital patient presented for a voluntary psychiatric evaluation and was forcibly detained against his will for ten days by hospital agents. The pa…
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ROBERT P. SMITH, Judge.
By this petition the Hospital seeks to prohibit the circuit court from exercising jurisdiction of plaintiff’s complaint which was not previously considered by a medical liability mediation panel pursuant to Section 768.44, Florida Statutes (1977). The question is whether plaintiff’s claim is for “malpractice” as that term is used in Section 768.44(l)(a):
Any person . . . claiming damages by reason of injury, death, or monetary loss on account of alleged malpractice by any . . . hospital . . . shall submit such claim to an appropriate medical liability mediation panel before that claim may be filed in any court of this state.
Allegations in plaintiff’s first count, incorporated by reference also in the second, characterize plaintiff’s claim as one of false imprisonment, in that, when plaintiff appeared for “a voluntary psychiatric evaluation,” Hospital agents • forcibly detained plaintiff against his will for ten days. The second count, repeating those allegations, adds that the Hospital assaulted plaintiff by “injection of harmful drugs and medicines without any reasonable or probable cause as well as [by] other physical contact.”
On its face the claim is not for medical malpractice arising from a legitimate doctor/hospital/patient relationship but is rather, as the circuit court held, for an entirely different species of intentional tort: false imprisonment and its sequelae. Plaintiff is entitled to plead his claim as he. wishes, thereby assuming the duty to prove that the medical treatment of which he complains in count two, ordinarily actionable only as malpractice when negligently performed within a consensual or otherwise defensible relationship of doctor/hospital/patient, was in fact an assault during a false imprisonment. See Jackson v. Biscayne Medical Center, Inc., 347 So. 2d 721 (Fla.3d DCA 1977).
The petition for writ of prohibition is DENIED.
McCORD, C. J., and ERVIN, J:, concur.
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Stackhouse v. Emerson, 611 So. 2d 1365 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993)…ated, what we have here are claims for intentional torts independent of any medical diagnosis, treatment or care, which, at best, originate rather remotely from a health care provider/patient relationship. See St. Vincent’s Medical Center v. Oakley, 371 So. 2d 590 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979); Jackson v. Biscayne Medical Center, Inc., 347 So. 2d 721 (Fla. 3d DCA 1977).1 See also McAlpin v. Sokolay, 596 So. 2d 1266 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992). To accept appellees’ contention that their acts, as set forth in the complaint, are…
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Zobac v. Se. Hosp. Dist. OF Palm Beach Cnty., 382 So. 2d 829 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980)…ip and fall over a sprinkler head on the hospital lawn. Talesmen from the county traditionally have been considered competent to determine how a reasonable man would have acted under similar circumstances. In St. Vincent’s Medical Center v. Oakley, 371 So. 2d 590 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979), the court denied a writ of prohibition to prevent the trial court from entertaining a complaint against a hospital for false imprisonment and its sequelae “without first submitting the claim to medical mediation”. The District C…
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Paulk v. Nat'l Med. Enters. Inc., 679 So. 2d 1289 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996)…711 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995), or other statutes pertaining to medical malpractice, Stackhouse v. Emerson, 611 So. 2d 1365 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993); Jackson v. Biscayne Medical Ctr., Inc., 347 So. 2d 721 (Fla. 3d DCA 1977); St. Vincent’s Medical Ctr. v. Oakley, 371 So. 2d 590 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979). In J.B., the Florida Supreme Court answered questions certified to it by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, to which the plaintiff had appealed the dismissal of his complaint. The plaintiff claimed that he became HIV-positi…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Jackson v. Biscayne Med. Ctr., Inc., 347 So. 2d 721 (Fla. 3d DCA 1977)