Judge: Colin Leis, Case: 19STCV23579, Date: 2022-08-30 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 19STCV23579    Hearing Date: August 30, 2022    Dept: 3

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA

COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – NORTHEAST DISTRICT

DEPARTMENT 3

MOVING PARTY:                Defendant Pasadena Hospital Association, Ltd. dba Huntington Memorial Hospital, now known as Huntington Hospital

RESPONDING PARTY:       Plaintiff Jordan Stremfel

Motion of Defendant Pasadena Hospital Association, Ltd. dba Huntington Memorial Hospital, Now Known as Huntington Hospital for Summary Judgment

The court considered the moving papers, opposition, and reply filed in connection with this motion.

BACKGROUND

            Plaintiff Jordan Stremfel filed this medical malpractice action on July 5, 2019 against Defendants Nader Kalantar, M.D. and Huntington Hospital. Plaintiff alleges that he suffered an anoxic brain injury following an emergency surgery to correct a post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage. The emergency surgery was performed on May 18, 2016 by Dr. Kalantar while Plaintiff was a patient at Huntington Hospital. The original tonsillectomy was performed by Dr. Kalantar on May 10, 2016 (but not at Huntington Hospital).

Huntington Hospital now moves for summary judgment.

LEGAL STANDARD

“[A] motion for summary judgment shall be granted if all the papers submitted show that there is no triable issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (c).) The moving party bears the initial burden of production to make a prima facie showing that there are no triable issues of material fact. (Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 826, 850.) If the moving party carries this burden, the burden shifts to the opposing party to make a prima facie showing that a triable issue of material fact exists. (Ibid.) Courts “liberally construe the evidence in support of the party opposing summary judgment and resolve doubts concerning the evidence in favor of that party.” (Dore v. Arnold Worldwide, Inc. (2006) 39 Cal.4th 384, 389.)

EVIDENCE

            The court grants Huntington Hospital’s request for judicial notice as to Exhibits A through N.

            The court finds it unnecessary to rule on Huntington Hospital’s evidentiary objections submitted with its reply. (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (q).)      

DISCUSSION

Huntington Hospital contends that Plaintiff’s claim is barred by the one-year limitations period for medical malpractice actions as set forth in Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5.

Medical malpractice claims are subject to a one-year and three-year statute of limitations. (Code Civ. Proc., § 340.5 [“In an action for injury … against a health care provider based upon such person’s alleged professional negligence, the time for the commencement of action shall be three years after the date of injury or one year after the plaintiff discovers, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury, whichever occurs first.”].)

“Under the one-year limitation period of section 340.5, the plaintiff must bring suit within one year after he or she discovers, or should have discovered, his or her injury.” (Brewer v. Remington (2020) 46 Cal.App.5th 14, 24.) “However, a plaintiff need not be aware of either the specific facts or the actual negligent cause of the injury.” (Ibid.) “If the plaintiff has notice or information of circumstances that would put a reasonable person on inquiry notice, the limitation period is activated.” (Ibid.)

Huntington Hospital argues that Plaintiff was aware of his injuries as early as January 2017 and no later than April 24, 2017. It is undisputed that in January 2017, Plaintiff retained an attorney to pursue a potential claim for injuries stemming from the May 2016 tonsillectomy. (Huntington Hospital’s Undisputed Material Fact (“UMF”) 3.) It is further undisputed that in January and February 2017, Plaintiff’s counsel served Notices of Intent to File Action for Medical Negligence pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 364 to Dr. Kalantar, among others. (UMF 5.) On April 24, 2017, Plaintiff filed a complaint for professional negligence against Dr. Kalantar (Case No. BC657433) (the “Prior Action”). In that complaint, Plaintiff alleged that Dr. Kalantar’s negligent treatment caused Plaintiff to sustain an anoxic brain injury. Huntington Hospital was not named as a defendant in the Prior Action. (UMF 6.)

The anoxic brain injury that is the basis for the Prior Action is the same anoxic brain injury that serves as the crux of the instant action. Therefore, Plaintiff discovered his injury for purposes of commencing the limitations period no later than April 24, 2017. But because Plaintiff did not file suit against Huntington Hospital until July 5, 2019, the suit against Huntington Hospital is time-barred.

Plaintiff counters that Huntington Hospital was not named in the Prior Action because there was no reason to believe that any malpractice occurred by the staff or employees of Huntington Hospital. But as correctly noted by Huntington Hospital, “it is the discovery of ‘the injury,’ rather than the discovery of a particular defendant’s negligence, that triggers the [one-year] limitations period.” (Knowles v. Superior Court (2004) 118 Cal.App.4th 1290, 1299.)

In any event, Plaintiff alleges in the complaint that fraudulent conduct on the part of Huntington Hospital equitably estops Huntington Hospital from relying on the statute of limitations defense. (Compl., ¶ 6.) Plaintiff alleges that Huntington Hospital altered the medical records when they were produced to Plaintiff in order to conceal the fact that Plaintiff suffered a serious protracted period of oxygen deprivation during the emergency surgery. According to Plaintiff, the markings on the anesthesia record that would have identified Plaintiff’s heart rate and oxygen saturation levels were removed from the copies produced to Plaintiff. Plaintiff alleges that this shows that Huntington Hospital colluded with Dr. Kalantar to prevent Plaintiff from discovering that Dr. Kalantar delayed placing an airway in Plaintiff such that another surgeon had to be called in to do it and then lied about it in his operative notes. (Compl., ¶ 6.)

“Generally speaking, four elements must be present in order to apply the doctrine of equitable estoppel: (1) the party to be estopped must be apprised of the facts; (2) he [or she] must intend that his [or her] conduct shall be acted upon, or must so act that the party asserting the estoppel had a right to believe it was so intended; (3) the other party must be ignorant of the true state of facts; and (4) he [or she] must rely upon the conduct to his [or her] injury.” (Doe v. Marten (2020) 49 Cal.App.5th 1022, 1028 [brackets in original].) “In the statute of limitations context, equitable estoppel may be appropriate where the defendant’s act or omission actually and reasonably induced the plaintiff to refrain from filing a timely suit.” (Ibid.) “The requisite act or omission must involve a misrepresentation or nondisclosure of a material fact bearing on the necessity of bringing a timely suit.” (Ibid. [emphasis in original].)

Huntington Hospital argues that equitable estoppel does not apply in this case, and the court agrees. Even assuming that Huntington Hospital was responsible for altering the medical records that were produced to Plaintiff (and Huntington Hospital offers evidence that it was not responsible (UMF 29)), Plaintiff has not established and cannot establish that the altered medical records induced Plaintiff to refrain from filing a timely lawsuit against Huntington Hospital. In other words, the altered medical records do not involve a misrepresentation or nondisclosure of a fact that bears on the necessity of timely bringing suit. Plaintiff clearly was able to timely file a lawsuit against Dr. Kalantar despite the altered records. Plaintiff offers no reasonable explanation for how he was prevented from bringing a similarly timely lawsuit against Huntington Hospital. And, as discussed above, it does not suffice to argue that Plaintiff did not have reason in April 2017 to believe that Huntington Hospital was negligent. 

As noted by Huntington Hospital, Plaintiff does not address equitable estoppel in his opposition to the motion. Instead, Plaintiff appears to rely on the principle of equitable tolling due to fraudulent concealment. While it is certainly true that fraudulent concealment of a cause of action by a defendant may toll the applicable statute of limitations, fraudulent concealment does not apply to toll the one-year statute of limitations set forth in Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5. (Sanchez v. South Hoover  Hospital (1976) 18 Cal.3d 93, 99-100; Dolan v. Borelli (1993) 13 Cal.App.4th 816, 824 [“[C]oncealment is an exception to the three-year, not one-year, limitations period in section 340.5.”].)

CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing, the court grants Huntington Hospital’s motion for summary judgment.

Huntington Hospital is ordered to give notice of this ruling.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED:  August 30, 2022

_____________________________

Colin Leis

Judge of the Superior Court