Long v. Rothbaum

ADKINS, Judge, Specially Assigned. Appellant, Lewis E. Long, Jr., asserts that the common law torts of false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and deprivations of liberty and other rights without due process actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , are not “medical injuries” as defined in Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article § S-^A-O^f). 1 Therefore, he argues, even though those wrongs were inflicted upon him by “health care provider[s]” as defined in § 3-2A-01(e), he should not be relegated to arbitration as a precondition to ⁵⁷¹ seeking a judicial remedy against the appellee health care providers. These contentions are before us as a result of Long’s appeal from the Circuit Court for Baltimore County’s dismissal of his action against appellees. The circuit court was of the view that the Health Care Claims Arbitration Act (§§ 3-2A-01 through 3-2A-09) applied and that arbitration was required by § 3-2A-02.

It ORDERED that the Motions to Dismiss [Long’s] Complaint for failure to satisfy a condition precedent to invoking the subject matter jurisdiction of this Court be, and hereby are, granted. 2 We hold that the circuit court did not err; we affirm its judgment. The factual basis for Long’s arguments may be gleaned from his complaint. Its well-pleaded facts are, of course, taken as true for purposes of a motion to dismiss under Md. Rule 2-322(b). See Flaherty v. Weinberg, 303 Md. 116 , 492 A.2d 618 (1985).

Although the complaint contains 48 counts and names 16 defendants, 3 Long’s wrongs may be grouped into two occurrences: the Franklin Square Hospital occurrence and the Taylor Manor Hospital occurrence. The tale begins at Franklin Square. According to Long, on November 17, 1981, Toll Facilities police, improperly considering him to be a suicide risk, took him to Franklin Square Hospital. The officers left and Long tried to do likewise, but doctors and other agents of the hospital restrained him, subsequently drugged him, and still later caused him to be admitted involuntarily to a mental health facility.

The Franklin Square doctors accomplished this by executing allegedly illegal documents entitled “Physician’s ⁵⁷² Certificate for Mentally Disordered” and by then handcuffing Long and transporting him to an “Asylum.” That “Asylum” was Taylor Manor Hospital, where Long arrived on November 18. Long contends that there, through the actions of doctors and other agents of Taylor Manor, he was illegally involuntarily admitted, without his consent kept at Taylor Manor, subjected to unlawful medical procedures and other wrongful actions, and not released until November 25. Long in due course sued both the Franklin Square and Taylor Manor health providers for false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress (Counts I-XXXII). He added 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims for violation of his constitutional rights (Counts XXXIII-XLYIII).

Each count claimed $500,000 compensatory and $500,000 punitive damages. There ensued a veritable blizzard of motions to dismiss, answers to motions, and memoranda. When the air cleared, the outcome was as we have stated it. Long’s complaint was dismissed because he had not first proceeded through the health claims arbitration process. 4 The legal framework within which Long must operate is clear.

One who sustains a “medical injury” at the hands of “health care providers” and whose claimed damages exceed $5,000 5 may not seek redress in a trial court until he or she has completed the arbitration process provided by the Health Care Malpractice Claims Act (the Act). See Oxtoby v. McGowan, 294 Md. 83, 87 , 447 A.2d 860 (1982). The appellees are health care providers as defined in § 3-2A- ⁵⁷³ 01(e). 6 Long’s claims against each appellee exceed $5,000. The only issue is whether the wrongs he allegedly suffered are “medical injur[ies].” Section 3-2A-01(f) defines a “medical injury” as “an injury arising or resulting from the rendering or failure to render health care.” In deciding whether the wrongs asserted by Long fall within the ambit of that subsection, we shall first consider the common law torts he has alleged, and then his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims.

As we have seen, the common law tort claims are false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It is Long’s position that intentional torts simply are not “medical injuries.” That term, he suggests, may be applied only to harm caused by negligent acts or failures to act. In support of this conclusion, he relies on two Maryland decisions: Cannon v. McKen, 296 Md. 27 , 459 A.2d 196 (1983) and Nichols v. Wilson, 296 Md. 154 , 460 A.2d 57 (1983). In Cannon a dentist’s patient was injured when an x-ray wall attachment fell on her.

The question was whether this was a medical injury. The Court of Appeals concluded that § 3-2A-01(f) was “somewhat ambiguous” in its definition of that term and looked to the legislative intent underlying the Act. 296 Md. at 32, 459 A.2d 196 . Reasoning that “[it] is patent that the legislature intended only those claims which the courts have traditionally viewed as professional malpractice to be covered by the Act”, id. at 34 , 459 A.2d 196 , the Court held ⁵⁷⁴ ... that the Act covers only those claims for damages arising from the rendering or failure to render health care where there has been a breach by the defendant, in his professional capacity, of his duty to exercise his professional expertise or skill. Those claims for damages arising from a professional’s failure to exercise due care in non-professional situations, such as premises liability, slander, assault, etc., were not intended to be covered under the Act and should proceed in the usual tort claim manner.

Id. at 36 , 459 A.2d 196 . Cannon had come up on the pleadings. Because the Court could not determine from the pleadings whether the injuries had occurred as a result of actions in the dentist’s “non-professional capacity” the case was remanded to permit appropriate amendments to clarify the point. Cannon , therefore, teaches that at least some actions against health care providers are not arbitrable under the Act.

The Court carried its analysis of this problem a step further in Nichols v. Wilson, 296 Md. 154 , 460 A.2d 57 (1983). Nichols was a case in which a doctor, about to remove sutures from a child’s cheek, slapped the child. He was sued in circuit court for, inter alia, assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The doctor’s motion to dismiss was granted, the circuit court holding that the Act applied and that arbitration was required as a condition precedent to suit.

The Court of Appeals reversed. Judge Couch, writing for the Court, as he had in Cannon , reasoned: Count I of appellants’ declaration clearly sounds in traditional assault and battery terms and alleges an intentional, malicious, wanton and reckless act. In no way can it be said that the legislature intended such a claim to be within the Act even though such action took place during the rendering of health care. Likewise, Count III [intentional infliction of emotional distress] depends for its validity on the actions described ⁵⁷⁵ in the assault and battery count which, again, are described as intentional, reckless, extreme and outrageous. 296 Md. at 161, 460 A.2d 57 [emphasis in original].

Long sees Nichols as dispositive of this case. See also MacAlister and Scanlan, Health Claims Arbitration in Maryland: The Experiment Has Failed, 14 U. of Balt.L. Rev. 481, 491-92 (1985). He, like the appellants in Nichols , has charged the appellee health care providers with the commission of intentional torts. His reading of Nichols leads him to the conclusion that intentional torts can never produce “medical injuries” within the § 3-2A-01(f) definition.

What Long overlooks is footnote 5, appended to the second paragraph of the portion of Nichols we have just quoted. That footnote demonstrates that Long’s reading of the case is too broad. The footnote explains: We do not mean hereby to indicate that all intentional torts of a professional nature are not covered by the Act as there may well be many such acts that would be so covered. Id., footnote 5.

Our task, then, is to determine whether the torts alleged here are among those intentional torts that are covered by the Act. That determination does not depend on how Long has labelled the torts—false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress—but on the factual context in which the torts were allegedly committed. ... [T]he critical question is whether the claim is based on the rendering or failure to render health care and not on the label placed on the claim____ If health care is or should be rendered and damage results therefrom, then it is a claim under the Act and must first be arbitrated. Brown v. Rabbitt, 300 Md. 171, 175 , 476 A.2d 1167 (1984) [citation omitted]. To answer this “critical question,” we must turn to the allegations of Long’s complaint.

The complaint shows that Long was brought to Franklin Square Hospital because he was thought to be a suicide risk. He was kept there involuntarily because the health ⁵⁷⁶ care providers at that hospital were attempting to treat him for that problem. His claimed false imprisonment, from which the asserted emotional distress arose, was caused by those health providers who executed Physicians’ Certificates for mentally disordered that are required for involuntary admission to mental health facilities. Long argues that the issuance of the certificates did not comply with the procedure required by COMAR 10.21.01.03.

Those improperly executed certificates, according to the complaint, caused Long’s transportation to and false imprisonment at Taylor Manor. The health care providers at that facility falsely imprisoned Long there, because they relied on the obviously improper and incomplete Physicians’ Certificates and kept him there, without any medical reason for doing so, in violation of COMAR 10.21.01.04E (providing for prompt review of the status of an involuntary mental committee). In addition, the complaint charges that the Taylor Manor personnel failed to comply with other COMAR provisions dealing with the rights of involuntary committees. The COMAR provisions allegedly violated by appellees implement §§ 10-613 through 10-617 of the Health-General Article.

These sections are part of Maryland’s Mental Hygiene Law, which declares the State’s policy to be: (1) to the best of its ability, to foster and preserve the mental health of its citizens; and (2) to that end, to provide without partiality care and treatment to citizens who have mental disorders. Health-General Art., § 10-102. It is apparent to us that what Long’s complaint in fact alleges is