Mixon v. Bronson Health Care Grp. – March 2015 (Summary)
EMTALA
Mixon v. Bronson Health Care Grp., No. 1:14-cv-330 (W.D. Mich. Mar. 31, 2015)
The United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan dismissed an Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”) claim brought by a patient against a hospital, holding that the patient did not have legal standing to assert the claim. While in labor, plaintiff, a patient, was admitted to defendant, a hospital. The patient delivered a live boy of 22 weeks’ gestation who died within minutes of his birth. The patient sued, alleging that the hospital violated EMTALA by failing to provide her baby with a medical screening examination and stabilizing treatment. The patient herself, and not the estate of her deceased son, sought damages for the emotional distress caused by the hospital’s failure to assist or resuscitate her baby.
The court dismissed the EMTALA claim, holding that the patient did not have standing to assert such a claim. The court stated that the patient did not suffer any actual personal harm, as is required under EMTALA. Moreover, the court explained that her EMTALA claim was actually a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim under state law. The patient had alleged the harm done was her emotional distress caused by the hospital’s non-compliant EMTALA actions. As described by the court, EMTALA is not a federal malpractice or negligence law.
Lastly, the court found that there was no disparate treatment given to the baby by the hospital, a key element of any EMTALA claim.