Government Relations Report
2025 Judicial Review: Significant Court Decisions on Medical Liability Issues
Summary
The U.S. Supreme Court and state supreme courts across the nation handed down significant decisions affecting healthcare practitioner liability in the past year.
Between fall 2024 and summer 2025, the highest court in the nation and several state supreme courts handed down significant decisions affecting healthcare practitioner liability.
Expanding Healthcare Employer Liability
In Camden-Clark Memorial Hospital Corporation v. Marietta Area Healthcare, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals unanimously held that a healthcare employer could be sued for negligent supervision, a new cause of action in the state. To bring a claim for negligent supervision, the court wrote, a plaintiff must prove that the employer had a duty to the plaintiff, breached this duty, and this breach caused damages. Additionally, the plaintiff must prove that the negligently supervised employee performed or failed to perform the act that injured the plaintiff.
The New Mexico Supreme Court in Trujillo v. Presbyterian Healthcare Services held that the case against a healthcare employer may move forward even if the case is voluntarily dismissed against the employee or agent that was the source of the alleged negligence by the employer. The court reasoned that dismissing a lawsuit against the employee did not reach the merits of the case in the same way as a signed release or an evidentiary disposition exonerating the employee or agent.
Medical Malpractice vs. Ordinary Negligence
The Texas Supreme Court in Leibman v. Waldroup moved away from a broad interpretation of the state’s medical tort reform laws that had previously included most cases involving medical conduct. A bare majority allowed a plaintiff, outside the practitioner-patient relationship, to plead that a physician was liable for ordinary negligence, not medical malpractice, in a case involving dog mauling. The plaintiff claimed that the dog owner’s healthcare practitioner negligently provided a note authorizing a service animal without first determining if the patient’s animal had the proper temperament. The majority excused the plaintiff from serving a preliminary medical expert report that was ordinarily required in medical negligence cases. They believed that a medical expert would not assist the trier of fact in determining if the practitioner negligently assessed the dog’s fitness as a service animal. The dissent strongly disagreed, writing that the medical expert would establish if the practitioner negligently provided the medical letter and that the letter was inextricably connected to the medical services. Additionally, the dissent lamented that the majority permitted the plaintiff’s artful pleading to avoid the state’s medical tort reform laws that were intentionally written to include all claims involving medical care.
The California Supreme Court in Guitierrez v. Tostado held that an ambulance driver who rear-ended a truck while performing a patient transport could be sued by the third-party truck driver under the statute of limitations for ordinary negligence, rather than medical malpractice. The court held that the ambulance driver was required to provide the same care owed by any driver to others on the road and was not providing professional healthcare services. Unlike the Texas high court’s majority in Leibman, a unanimous California Supreme Court expressly warned plaintiffs that artful pleading would not determine the application of medical liability laws. They wrote that if the substance of a plaintiff’s case involved a healthcare practitioner’s professional duty, no matter how cleverly worded to allege ordinary negligence, the case would fall under medical liability laws. Further litigation will likely determine if plaintiffs’ attorneys will be deterred from attempting to avoid medical liability tort reforms in California.
Further Erosion to Statutes of Repose
A recent trend eroding enforceability of outside time limits for filing a medical liability action, known as statutes of repose, continued. These limits protect healthcare practitioners from being forced to unfairly defend old cases where evidence no longer exists and memories have faded. In 2019 and 2023, Pennsylvania’s and Washington’s high courts, respectively, declared each state’s statute of repose unconstitutional in medical malpractice actions. The Ohio Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Western Reserve Senior Care held that a tolling statute paused the statute of repose when a defendant healthcare practitioner innocently moved outside of the state to relocate for work. Fortunately, the legislature swiftly limited this decision’s impact by amending the tolling statute to expressly exclude medical malpractice actions.
Restrictions on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors Upheld
Tennessee SB 1’s limitation on gender-affirming care for minors was the first such law to reach the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Skrmetti. The law prohibited, among other things, healthcare practitioners from performing surgery and providing puberty blockers. The majority held that the state’s ban was not a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, because the law focused on the diagnoses and treatments of minors’ gender dysphoria and did not focus on gender itself. Under this reasoning, SB 1 was not sex discrimination and did not trigger heightened scrutiny.
Constitutionality of Limitations on Noneconomic Damages
Two state high courts handed down positive rulings for healthcare practitioners by declining two constitutional challenges to each state’s cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases.
The Michigan Supreme Court in Beaubien v. Trivedi denied a certified question from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to decide the constitutionality of the cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice actions. The court explained that the certified-question process resolves unsettled issues of state law but does not relitigate settled ones. The noneconomic damages cap was constitutional under binding precedent, and, therefore, was not the appropriate subject of a certified question.
In Medical Center of Central Georgia v. Turner, the Georgia Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal asking if the state’s cap on noneconomic damages was unconstitutional in wrongful death cases. Instead, they instructed the lower court to apply the court’s reasoning in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery v. Nestlehutt. In Nestlehutt, the court held that a different cap on damages was unconstitutional because the jury trial right protected common law actions that existed prior to 1798. The wrongful death statutes at issue in Turner, Ga. Code Ann. §§ 51-4-1 and 51-4-2, were enacted in 1887 and 1850, respectively. While not officially answering the ultimate question, the court implied that post-1798 laws would not violate the state’s right to a jury trial.
Learn more about how The Doctors Company is defending medical liability protections at every level of government by visiting our Legislative, Regulatory, and Judicial Advocacy page at thedoctors.com/advocacy.
The Doctor’s Advocate is published by The Doctors Company to advise and inform its members about loss prevention and insurance issues.
The guidelines suggested in this newsletter are not rules, do not constitute legal advice, and do not ensure a successful outcome. They attempt to define principles of practice for providing appropriate care. The principles are not inclusive of all proper methods of care nor exclusive of other methods reasonably directed at obtaining the same results.
The ultimate decision regarding the appropriateness of any treatment must be made by each healthcare provider considering the circumstances of the individual situation and in accordance with the laws of the jurisdiction in which the care is rendered.
The Doctor’s Advocate is published quarterly by Corporate Communications, The Doctors Company. Letters and articles, to be edited and published at the editor’s discretion, are welcome. The views expressed are those of the letter writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or official policy of The Doctors Company. Please sign your letters, and address them to the editor.
