Gutierrez v. Santa Rosa Memorial Hosp. — Dec. 2016 (Summary)

EMTALA

Gutierrez v. Santa Rosa Mem’l Hosp.
Case No. 16-cv-02645-SI (N.D. Cal. Dec. 13, 2016)

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted in part and denied in part a hospital’s motions to dismiss claims under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”) and California’s Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act brought by a patient and her family (“plaintiffs”).

The patient, a diabetic with end-stage renal disease, sought treatment at the hospital’s emergency department.  The hospital ordered various laboratory and diagnostic tests which allegedly showed evidence of “profound congestive heart failure.”  Despite this, according to the plaintiffs’ complaint, the patient was discharged and, while sitting in the hospital’s waiting room, collapsed.  She was resuscitated, but remained in a coma.  The plaintiffs sued the hospital asserting claims for, among other things, a violation of EMTALA and a violation of the state’s Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act.  The hospital filed a motion to dismiss, which the court granted in part and denied in part.  In doing so, the court found that the plaintiffs adequately pleaded a failure to screen claim under EMTALA in that the plaintiffs alleged that the hospital provided a screening that was different than what it would have provided to patients who were not indigent and underinsured and that the screening was “so cursory that it was not designed to identify acute and severe symptoms.”  The court also concluded that the plaintiffs adequately pleaded a failure to stabilize claim under EMTALA.  On the other hand, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act claim because the patient did not fit the definition of “dependent adult” under the law and there was no “caretaking or custodial relationship” between the patient and the hospital.