Billeaudeau v. Opelousas Gen. Hosp. Auth. — Oct. 2016 (Summary)

NEGLIGENT CREDENTIALING

Billeaudeau v. Opelousas Gen. Hosp. Auth.
No. 2016-C-0846 (La. Oct. 19, 2016)

The Supreme Court of Louisiana affirmed the judgment of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, holding that a claim for negligent credentialing against a hospital, involving care provided by an independent contractor emergency medicine physician, was not covered by the state medical malpractice act and, as such, was not subject to the statute’s damages cap.

Plaintiff, a woman with Down Syndrome, was taken to the emergency department of a hospital for treatment of a suspected stroke.  The ED physician declined to administer anti-stroke medication, despite the insistence of the patient’s family.  Though the patient was eventually transferred to another facility where she received the adequate treatment for her stroke, the delay resulted in irreversible brain damage.  In addition to basic negligence claims against the ED physician, the patient’s family also sued the hospital, alleging that the hospital negligently credentialed that ED physician when it failed to delve deeper into certain issues identified in her background, including information such as a requirement that ED physicians have at least a year of full-time practice in an emergency department, that was required by the medical staff bylaws.  The hospital argued that the negligent credentialing claim was indistinct from the patient’s medical malpractice claims, which were subject to the state medical malpractice act and associated limitation on damages.

After going through a detailed analysis of the language in the state medical malpractice act and finding no reference to negligent credentialing, the court ultimately applied a six-factor test to determine if the negligent credentialing allegations aligned more with general negligence law or malpractice law.  The test included such factors as whether negligent credentialing was “treatment-related” or caused by a dereliction of duty, whether expert medical evidence would be required to determine a breach of the standard of care, and whether the act in question involved an assessment of the patient’s condition. After applying all factors, the court held that claims involving negligent credentialing were “administrative, not medical, in nature.” Because only claims arising from medical malpractice are governed by the medical malpractice act, negligent credentialing is not a claim related to medical malpractice and therefore was not subject to the statute’s damages cap.