Malcolm v. Duckett (Summary)

NEGLIGENT CREDENTIALING

Malcolm v. Duckett, No. L-10-1110 (Ohio Ct. App. Feb. 25, 2011)

An Ohio appeals court affirmed a lower court’s judgment, granting summary judgment to a defendant hospital and dismissing a patient’s claim for negligent credentialing, finding that the plaintiff’s cause of action was time-barred by a two-year statute of limitation.

A cause of action for negligent credentialing accrues when the plaintiff knows or should know that he or she was injured as a result of a hospital’s negligent credentialing procedures or practices. The court ruled that the “alerting” event occurred when the plaintiff, through her attorneys and her expert witness, had knowledge of the physician’s pattern of negligence in prior cases. The court found that this constructive knowledge was sufficient to put her on notice of the need to investigate the facts and circumstances relevant to her claim and to determine whether the medical malpractice of the physician could have been prevented had the hospital credentialed the physician in accordance with the applicable standard of care. However, because this “alerting event” was more than two years prior to the date that the plaintiff filed the negligent credentialing claim against the hospital, the claim for negligent credentialing was time-barred and dismissed.