Day on Torts - New Post: HCLA pre-suit notice addressed to administrator as an individual did not provide notice to health care facility.

Where an HCLA plaintiff attempted to sue defendant medical center but sent pre-suit notice to the center’s administrator addressed only to the administrator and not referencing the center, dismissal based on a lack of pre-suit notice was affirmed.

In Webb v. Trevecca Center for Rehabilitation and Healing, LLC,  No. M2019-01300-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 10, 2020), plaintiff filed this health care liability suit against defendant medical center and four individual employees of the center. Prior to filing suit, she sent five pre-suit notices to the center’s business address. Four of the notices were addressed to the four individual defendants and the fifth was addressed to Pamela Bishop, who was the medical center’s administrator. In neither the address, the address block on the letter, nor the greeting was Ms. Bishop’s role as administrator addressed. Instead, the letter was simply written to Pamela Bishop.

Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the four individual defendants, and then defendant medical center moved to dismiss based on plaintiff’s failure to give proper pre-suit notice. Defendant asserted that the notice addressed to Ms. Bishop did not fulfill the statutory requirements, and the trial court agreed. On appeal, dismissal was affirmed.

The Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure will be changed July 1, 2021 to require the disclosure of the filer’s email address on papers filed in court.  The rule change still must be approved by the General Assembly.