Leimbach v. Haw. Pac. Health – July 2015 (Summary)

EMTALA

Leimbach v. Haw. Pac. Health, Civ. No. 14-00246 JMS-RLP (D. Haw. July 22, 2015)

The United States District Court for the District of Hawai’i granted, with leave to amend, a motion to dismiss filed by a health system and others (“defendants”) in a suit brought by a patient who alleged that the defendants violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”).

The patient argued that the defendants failed to provide him with an appropriate screening examination and failed to stabilize and/or transfer him. With regard to the inappropriate screening allegations, the patient argued that the health system, by providing only a “cursory examination,” failed to diagnose his necrotizing fasciitis. In addressing the defendants’ motion to dismiss, the court rejected this claim, instructing that “[d]efendants cannot incur EMTALA liability for what is merely an incorrect diagnosis.” The court also dismissed the patient’s claims of disparate treatment under EMTALA, finding that the patient’s “allegations fail to support the plausible inference that Plaintiff and [the four patients identified by patient to support his claim] had similar symptoms, let alone that Plaintiff’s screening examination was in any way different.”

Finally, the court dismissed the patient’s failure to stabilize and/or transfer claims under EMTALA based on his necrotizing fasciitis. According to the court, the patient alleged that the defendants failed to diagnose his necrotizing fasciitis. Consequently, the defendants “were obligated to stabilize only the medical conditions they actually diagnosed.”