Governor Ned Lamont granted hospitals immunity from lawsuits in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it's up to the state Supreme Court to decide if hospitals are immune from lawsuits regarding all medical issues, or just COVID-19 cases.
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Dave Altimari to discuss his article, “CT Supreme Court case to test limits of hospital immunity,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short.
WSHU: Hello, Dave, could you tell us a little bit about this case involving Cheryl Mills and Hartford Healthcare?
DA: Yes. So this case is about to go before the state's Supreme Court. It's a lawsuit by the estate of a woman named Cheryl Mills, who died in March of 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, in Hartford Hospital. Her lawyers are challenging the executive order that Governor Lamont issued at the beginning of the pandemic granting immunity from lawsuits for hospitals and nursing homes,
WSHU: Specifically immunity from lawsuits concerning COVID cases, right?
DA: Yes, because of the pandemic, he wanted to give them immunity for any potential legal liabilities for fighting or treating COVID-19 patients.
WSHU: Now, why is this particular case unique?
DA: So in this particular case, Cheryl Mills was actually an employee of Backus Hospital down in Norwich, which is owned by Hartford Hospital. She was at work in the emergency room and fell ill. And the doctors there thought that she was having a heart attack. They transferred her to Hartford Hospital, which has a special lab that deals with heart patients. When she got there, it was March 21, 2020. So literally right at the beginning of the pandemic.
When she got to Hartford Hospital, the doctor there wasn't as sure about the heart situation and thought she may have COVID. And so rather than admitting her to the special clinic, they put her in a general room, and they gave her a COVID test. And it took them three days to get the COVID test back. If you remember back at the time, at the beginning of this, it was very hard to get testing, and very hard to get those results. And so the test came back on the evening of her fourth night at the hospital, indicating that she did not have COVID. And that's when a doctor shortly after that authorized her transfer to the special heart unit. But she died of a heart attack on the bathroom floor of her hospital room the morning she was supposed to be transferred.
WSHU: What are the arguments in this lawsuit?
DA: So the judge in the case kind of did a split ruling. He ruled that the hospital and the doctors that treated Cheryl Mills were indeed covered by Lamont’s immunity order, until the moment that they realized she tested negative for COVID. He said that the lawsuit can stay alive as a malpractice suit from roughly the 10 to 12 hour window when the hospital knew she was COVID negative and she died of a heart attack. So both sides are actually appealing to the state Supreme Court. The hospital is saying it's clearly covered by the immunity and the whole thing should have been dismissed. The plaintiffs are saying the hospital is hiding behind COVID immunity and this is really a heart attack case that was misdiagnosed.
WSHU: And basically, those are the main arguments here. If the court rules in favor of the hospital, it means that it was a blanket coverage that the governor signed in his executive order.
DA: Here's what will happen if they rule in favor of the hospital. That will probably kill three other lawsuits that are currently pending against nursing homes. Those cases are not as far along as this one is. But if the court rules that the hospital is indeed covered by the immunity, I think it would be very difficult for another case to overcome that. Not impossible, but I think it would be very difficult.
If the court decides in favor of the plaintiff, I think that would open the door to more lawsuits being filed. Because if you think back to 2020, lots of people died in nursing homes. COVID just decimated our nursing homes. And a lot of people really had no idea how their loved ones died. And I think if the court were to keep this suit alive, I think you would probably see more lawsuits filed.
WSHU: Basically, all arguments in the suits are going to happen later this month or next month.
DA: I'm told, I believe it'll be on the March calendar. So there'll be an argument and then it could be three to six months before the court issues a ruling. I anticipate that the other cases that are currently pending against separate nursing homes, I would suspect the judges in those cases will wait to hear from the state Supreme Court rather than make a ruling that may not even be worth anything once the court makes theirs.
WSHU: So the bottom line is that there's a lot of money on the line, depending on the outcome of this case, and probably we'll get the verdict in the summertime.
DA: If we're lucky, yeah. I would say it usually takes some three to six months. And clearly there'll be a lot of attorneys that will be watching the court's decision here.
