CHRISTINE STUBBS, APPELLANT,
v.
PLANTATION GENERAL HOSPITAL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, A FOREIGN LIMITED PARTNERSHIP D/B/A PLANTATION GENERAL HOSPITAL, ALL ABOUT STAFFING, INC., A FLORIDA CORPORATION, SURGI-STAFF, INC., A FLORIDA CORPORATION, AND LORENZO RIVERA, APPELLEES

Fla. 4th DCA | 2008-07-30
No. 4D07-4507
FARMER and HAZOURI, JJ., concur.
988 So. 2d 683 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2008) Positive Treatment
Cited by 19 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

Patient Stubbs sued Plantation General Hospital and others for negligence after falling and injuring herself when an employee directed her to move while nauseous and dizzy. The trial court dismissed the complaint, finding it alleged medical negligence based on the employee's status as a registered nurse, but the appellate court reversed, holding the court improperly looked beyond the complaint's allegations that the employee was acting as an orderly.


Holding

The trial court erred in dismissing the complaint because it improperly went beyond the four corners of the complaint by relying on Rivera's affidavit stating he was a registered nurse exercising nursing judgment, when the complaint alleged he was acting as an orderly. The allegations in the complaint, taken as true, do not clearly sound in medical negligence.


Headnotes

[1] A trial court may not go beyond the four corners of a complaint when ruling on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action.

[2] A motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action admits all well-pleaded facts and reasonable inferences arising from those facts.

Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“A motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action admits all well pleaded facts as true, as well as reasonable inferences that may arise from those facts.”

Establishes the standard for evaluating a motion to dismiss—all allegations must be accepted as true

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

While a patient at Plantation General Hospital, Christine Stubbs fell and injured herself. The complaint alleged that Lorenzo Rivera, acting as an ord…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PALMER, WILLIAM D„ Associate Judge.

PALMER, WILLIAM D„ Associate Judge.

Christine Stubbs appeals the final order entered by the trial court dismissing her complaint with prejudice. Concluding that the complaint states a cognizable cause of action and that the trial court improperly looked beyond the four corners of the complaint in ruling on the motion to dismiss, we reverse.

In her complaint Stubbs alleged that, while a patient at Plantation General Hospital, she fell and injured herself as a result of the hospital’s negligence. More specifically, the complaint alleged that defendant Lorenzo Rivera, while acting as an orderly for the hospital, directed Stubbs to move from a test bed to a gurney and that she asked for assistance because she was feeling nauseous and dizzy and then began vomiting on the test bed. The complaint further alleged that Rivera began yelling at Stubbs to move onto the gurney and that when she attempted to comply, she fell to the floor thereby sustaining physical injury.

Rivera and Surgi-Staff, Rivera’s alleged employer, filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The motion alleged that Stubbs’ claims were based upon professional negligence, not ordinary negligence, and thus were barred by the two-year statute of limitations applicable to professional negligence actions. See § 95.11(4), Fla. Stat. (2005). The motion further alleged that Stubbs’ medical negligence claim was barred because it had not been submitted to pre-suit screening. See § 766.106, Fla. Stat. (2005).

Upon review, the trial court granted the dismissal motion, stating:

GRANTED with prejudice based upon the allegations in the Second Amended Complaint (including paragraphs 12-16) the Court finds as a matter of law that Lorenzo Rivera, R.N. was exercising his nursing judgment at all times material hereto, and therefore, this claim comes under the authority of Florida Statutes Chapter 766.

Stubbs challenges this ruling, claiming that the trial court erred in going outside the four corners of the complaint in granting the motion to dismiss. We agree.

“Generally, the standard of review of an order dismissing a complaint with prejudice is de novo ” Palumbo v. Moore, 777 So. 2d 1177, 1178 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001).

“A motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action admits all well pleaded facts as true, as well as reasonable inferences that may arise from those facts.” Id. “[A] court may not properly go beyond the four corners of the complaint in testing the legal sufficiency of the allegations set forth therein.” Hewett-Kier Constr. Inc. v. Lemuel Ramos and Assocs., Inc., 775 So. 2d 373, 375 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) (quoting Reed v. Sampson, 349 So. 2d 684, 685 (Fla. 4th DCA 1977)).

Here, the trial court went beyond the four corners of the complaint when it found that Rivera was a registered nurse who was exercising his nursing judgment at all times material, since Stubbs’ complaint alleged that Rivera was acting as an orderly during said timeframe.1 In that regard, the trial court improperly relied upon an affidavit filed by Rivera detailing his interaction with Stubbs. In said affidavit, Rivera stated that he was employed as a registered nurse, rather than an orderly, and that he was performing a nursing assessment of Stubbs at the time of her injury.

The allegations contained within the four corners of Stubbs’ complaint, when taken as true, do not clearly sound in medical negligence. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss was improperly granted. See Reeves v. N. Broward Hosp. Dist., 821 So. 2d 819, 322 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002) (explaining that the alleged wrongful act must be directly related to the improper application of medical services to the patient and the use of professional judgment and skill) (quoting Bell v. Indian River Mem’l Hosp., 778 So. 2d 1030, 1033-34 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001)).

Reversed.

FARMER and HAZOURI, JJ., concur. . In her answer brief, counsel for appellees misquoted the pleadings below, stating that the complaint alleged that “after tests were conducted, plaintiff was on a test bed and was directed by ... Surgi-Staff employee, Nurse Rivera, to move from the test bed to a gurney.” (Emphasis added.) In fact, the second amended complaint made reference in that paragraph to "defendant Rivera.”


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • DOE v. Baptist Primary Care, Inc., 177 So. 3d 669 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015)
    …miss admitted all well-pleaded facts and all reasonable inferences that arguably arose from those facts, and the trial court could not look beyond the four corners of the complaint in deciding the motion. Stubbs v. Plantation Gen. Hosp. Ltd. P’ship, 988 So. 2d 683, 684 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008). Applying these principles to the instant order of dismissal, our singular task is to “‘decide from [the allegations] whether the claim arises out of the rendering of, or the failure to render, medical care or services.’ ”…
  • Wildflower, LLC v. ST. Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist., 179 So. 3d 369 (Fla. 5th DCA 2015)
    …denied Appellant’s motion for default. Appellant timely filed this appeal. ■ STANDARD OF REVIEW As a general rule, “the standard of review of an order dismissing a complaint with prejudice is de novo.” Stubbs v. Plantation Gen. Hosp. Ltd. P’ship, 988 So. 2d 683, 684 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008). However, “the standard of review of an order dismissing a complaint seeking a declaratory judgment is whether the trial court abused its discretion.” Orange Cty. v. Expedia, Inc., 985 So. 2d 622, 624 (Fla. 5th DCA 2008) (qu…
  • Buck v. Columbia Hosp. Corp. OF S. Broward, 147 So. 3d 604 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014)
    …state a cause of action in ordinary negligence as opposed to medical negligence. Decedent was injured as a Result of Medical Negligence We review an order dismissing a complaint with prejudice de novo. Stubbs v. Plantation Gen. Hosp. Ltd. P’ship, 988 So. 2d 683, 684 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (“Stubbs I”) (quoting Palumbo v. Moore, 111 So. 2d 1177, 1178 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001)). “A motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action admits all well pleaded facts as true, as well as reasonable inferences from tho…

Previewing 3 of 10 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw