Lewellen v. Schneck Med. Ctr.

EMTALA

Lewellen v. Schneck Med. Ctr., No. 4:05-cv-083-JDT-WGH (S.D. Ind. Nov. 9, 2007)

In a suit brought by a patient under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act ("EMTALA"), the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana denied the patient’s motion to amend his complaint to add two claims under 42 U.S.C. §1983 (based on the alleged violations of EMTALA) against a hospital and a physician and nurse who treated him there.

The patient was injured in a car accident and transported to the hospital by two police officers who suspected he had been driving under the influence. The nurse completed the initial assessment and the physician examined him. Against the patient’s wishes, they discharged him and he was taken to jail. It was later discovered that he had a burst fracture in his spine which was not properly diagnosed at the hospital. As a result, the patient suffered permanent damage to his spinal cord. The court first observed that the omission of language in EMTALA indicating a private right of action against individual physicians purposefully precludes a patient from asserting claims against those individual physicians. Further, because the remedies provided in EMTALA’s enforcement scheme are sufficiently comprehensive, §1983 may not be used as a vehicle to allege additional EMTALA violations against the hospital. Thus, the patient was denied his motion to amend his complaint to include the two claims under 42 U.S.C. §1983.