a)    Plaintiff went to hospital b/c she had shoulder pain.  Her hemoglobin count was low.
b)    The doctor claims he wanted the patient to be admitted, but that the patient didn’t want to stay in the hospital b/c she was worried that her workers compensation would not cover it.
c)    Patient claimed she was never told she needed to be admitted to the hospital.  She later died from internal bleeding and toxic poisoning.
d)    She claims wrongful discharge by the hospital, which is covered by EMTALA–requires a hospital (when an emergency condition exists) to either stabilize the individual or transfer them to another facility.
e)    Court said this was not a med mal case b/c EMTALA is not a med mal statute.
(1)    EMTALA had a good theory behind it.  But courts have widely contradicted each other on what remedy is appropriate.  The language in the law says that a participating hospital who negligently violates the law, allows the patient to recover damages under state law.
(a)    In Texas, you get damages for negligent doctor or hospital through medical malpractice cases.  Courts say that negligence goes to medical malpractice, so is this a medical malpractice case?
(b)    EMTALA is a very controversial law and lawyers attempt to use it to bring a med mal claim that they would not ordinarily be allowed to bring.  But the court here says that EMTALA is NOT a medical malpractice statute.
(2)    Court said they were not negligent b/c it isn’t what they “should” have known; it mattered what they actually knew.  It doesn’t matter if they were negligent in arriving at their diagnosis.  The court said the hospital’s actions are to be viewed in terms of the actual diagnosis, and not in terms of what the diagnosis should have been.
f)    Watts says the statute is trying to say the hospital must have policies to screen patients to determine if emergency situation, and if so, must treat or transfer patient.  The hospital must carry out the policies, and if they don’t have the policy, they can be held liable.  If the doctor doesn’t follow the policy, both the doctor and hospital can be held liable.  Be aware that EMTALA is a confusing law.
g)    The court handled the evidence introduced by the plaintiff as to the federal government’s attempt to sanction the hospital by saying that the investigator who made the report (generated by the DHHS investigator who was not a physician) was not qualified to make a medical finding about whether the hospital had determined that the patient had an emergency medial condition.  The court said that under EMTALA, a hospital’s determination of whether a patient has an emergency situation must be made by the physician.
h)    EMTALA is not a federal malpractice law even though it speaks of negligence, b/c it generates state law, which is interesting b/c under EMTALA there is a SOL of 2 years to bring it under the statute, but some states have more than 2 years to bring a malpractice claim.