Keene v. Brigham and Women’s Hosp., Inc.

Keene v. Brigham and Women’s Hosp., Inc.,
No. SJC-08894 (Mass. Apr. 22, 2003)

In
a malpractice suit, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts upheld a default judgment
against a hospital that failed to produce the medical records of treatment provided
to a newborn patient who suffered severe injuries as a result of sepsis. The
hospital claimed that the records of the care provided during the patient’s
first day of life had "vanished." Although there was no evidence of
bad faith on the part of the hospital, the court upheld the default judgment
since the hospital had a statutory duty to maintain the records, and thus was
at least negligent in allowing them to vanish. The court found that, because
the records in this case were so central to the lawsuit, default judgment was
the appropriate remedy.

However, the court overturned the lower court’s decision to remove the $20,000
cap on damages as an additional sanction. The lower court had determined to
remove the cap since (i) the hospital’s action in losing the record caused the
patient to be unable to identify the practitioners involved in his care, and
thus rendered him unable to collect damages from those individuals (who were
not protected by the cap), and (ii) the hospital and its practitioners were
insured by the same company, and thus it was appropriate for the insurer to
pick up the overall liability costs of $4 million. The Massachusetts Supreme
Court disagreed, finding that the cap could not be removed simply because the
result seemed unfair.