Morales v. Palomar Health — Nov. 2016 (Summary)

EMTALA

Morales v. Palomar Health
Case No.:  3:14-cv-0164-GPC-MDD (S.D. Cal. Nov. 17, 2016)

The United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted a children’s hospital’s partial motion for summary judgment against an infant’s representative who brought a claim of inadequate screening under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”).  The infant visited the children’s hospital for urgent care on four different occasions, which resulted in the physicians concluding that the one-year-old had either an early flu or an upper respiratory tract infection during the first visit, acute febrile illness during the second visit, and a number of differential diagnoses during the third visit.  After returning to the hospital two days later for a fourth visit and receiving a diagnosis of meningitis, the infant’s representative brought suit alleging that the hospital’s course of treatment was insufficient within the meaning of EMTALA.

The district court found that the infant’s representative failed his burden of rebutting the evidence offered by the hospital and also failed to produce any evidence that would support his contention that the hospital failed to provide an appropriate medical screening examination.  While the infant’s representative did offer expert testimony, the representative’s experts spoke exclusively in terms of prudent care and the standard of care, but the Ninth Circuit has already established that EMTALA does not establish a national standard of care and is not a federal medical malpractice cause of action.  Therefore, while pointing to the shortcomings of the hospital’s screening process may establish the hospital’s conduct fell below an operative standard of care, the court nevertheless found that this line of reasoning was not sufficient without additional evidence to demonstrate an EMTALA violation.  Accordingly, the district court granted the children’s hospital’s motion for partial summary judgment as to the representative’s EMTALA claim.