Beller v. Health and Hosp. Corp. of Marion County, Ind. (Summary)

EMTALA

Beller v. Health and Hosp. Corp. of Marion County, Ind., No. 1:03-cv-00889-TWP-TAB (S.D. Ind. Nov. 4, 2011)

Upon reconsideration, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana concluded that it erred in its application of the law and that a hospital was entitled to summary judgment. Two patients had sued the hospital for an Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”) violation.

To maintain a claim against the hospital, the patients had to show that they had “come to the emergency department” pursuant to EMTALA rules. The 2001 EMTALA regulation stated that “comes to the emergency department” included ambulances owned and operated by the pertinent hospital, even if not on hospital grounds. However, the 2003 EMTALA regulation provided that “an individual in an ambulance owned and operated by the hospital is not considered to have “come to the hospital’s emergency department if – the ambulance is operated under the communitywide emergency medial service protocols.” Case law recognizes that an agency’s regulation or rule that clarifies an unsettled or confusing area of law may be applied retroactively. The court found that the 2003 regulation was just such a clarification (and not a substantive change) in regard to the term “comes to the emergency department.” Because the patients could not show that they “came to the hospital’s emergency department” in light of the 2003 regulation, the hospital was entitled to summary judgment.