Preston v. Meriter Hosp., Inc., No. 2006AP3013 ( Wis. Ct. App. Jan. 24, 2008)

The Court of Appeals of Wisconsin affirmed summary judgment in favor of a hospital in a lawsuit brought by a patient alleging that the hospital violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act ("EMTALA"). Specifically, the patient claimed that the hospital violated EMTALA's screening requirement when it provided only nursing care, and no other treatment or resuscitation, to her premature infant, who died a few hours after birth. The court disagreed. The court first acknowledged that EMTALA's screening requirement does not apply to inpatients. It went on to hold that when a hospital provides inpatient care to a woman, and that care involves the simultaneous treatment of the woman's fetus, the unborn child is a second inpatient who is considered to have been admitted at the same time as the mother. Because the premature infant was an inpatient, by virtue of the fact that his mother had been admitted to the hospital, the court held that EMTALA was inapplicable.