Kimberly Ruloph v. LAMMICO, No. 21-1572 (8th Cir. 2022)
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Plaintiff brought suit against LAMMICO d/b/a Lammico Risk Retension Group, Inc. (LAMMICO); Mercy Hospital-Fort Smith (Mercy); various doctors, Mercy Clinic Fort Smith Communities; and John Does 1-10, alleging liability under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), 42 U.S.C. Section 1395dd. Plaintiff claimed that Mercy made an “inappropriate transfer”. Plaintiff alleged that the delay in receiving vascular surgery within a six-hour window after the injury caused her leg to be amputated. Plaintiff further alleged that Mercy’s statutory duty under EMTALA is strict or absolute.”
The district court granted summary judgment. On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to Defendants. Further, she argued that EMTALA imposes a strict liability standard for noncompliance with its directions.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained EMTALA’s aim is to discourage bad-faith hospitals from dumping patients. Imposing liability upon a hospital’s good-faith effort to secure appropriate care for a patient that is beyond its capabilities is off the mark. Such liability would run contrary to EMTALA’s purpose and would undermine the express target of securing adequate care for patients who could not otherwise afford it. EMTALA’s “appropriate transfer” requirement should be assessed from the perspective of a reasonable transferring hospital at the time the hospitals agreed to the transfer and the patient departed the transferring hospital. Under this standard, Mercy effected an “appropriate transfer”: it sent Plaintiff to a hospital that, based on the information conveyed to it by the hospital, had “qualified personnel” for her treatment.
Court Description: [Smith, Author, with Benton and Kelly, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Plaintiff alleged defendant Mercy violated the Act when it transferred her to a regional medical center after determining that she had suffered a vascular injury it could not treat and being told by the receiving center that it had qualified medical personnel available to treat her; when plaintiff arrived at the center she had to be transferred to another Mercy facility because no vascular surgeon was available at the center; because of the delay in performing the surgery, plaintiff lost her leg. The district court concluded that defendant Mercy made an appropriate transfer based on the regional center's representation that it had qualified personnel available to perform the necessary treatment. Held; the transferring hospital is not responsible under the Act for the accuracy of the representations of expertise made by the receiving hospital at the time the hospitals agree to the transfer; defendant's Mercy's act of transferring plaintiff did not violate the Act.
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