In the case of Frye v. Wellspan Health, No. 20-SU-1116 (C.P. Adams Co. Feb. 4, 2022 George, P.J.), the trial court granted a Defendant’s Preliminary Objections to a Plaintiff’s medical malpractice Complaint on the basis that the Plaintiff failed to effectuate proper service on that particular Defendant.
According to the Opinion, the Plaintiff filed a medical malpractice action against a medical doctor who performed a procedure placing a spinal stimulator on the Plaintiff’s thoracic spine. The Plaintiff also sued the medical facility and other Defendants.
According to the record before the court, the medical doctor was not an employee of the hospital where the procedure was performed but rather, was an independent contractor. The Plaintiff served the hospital and the remaining individual Defendants but not the medical doctor who performed the actual procedure.
The Plaintiff’s argued that they believed that the doctor was properly served when they served the hospital with the Complaint.
The Defendant doctor at issue filed Preliminary Objections asserting that he was not properly served until approximately 9 ½ months after the expiration of the applicable statute of limitations.
After applying the law of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling in the case of Lamp v. Heyman, 366 A.2d 822 (Pa. 1976), and its progeny, the court found that the Plaintiff had not acted diligently to meet the Plaintiff’s requirement of making a good faith effort to complete service of process upon the Defendant.
As such, the trial court dismissed the Plaintiff’s medical malpractice Complaint against that Defendant doctor with prejudice.
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Source: “Digest of Recent Opinions.” Pennsylvania Law Weekly (July 12, 2022).