Worker’s Comp Death Benefits Claim Survives Dismissal

For medical malpractice claims in Louisiana, the general rule is that a plaintiff has one year from the date of the alleged malpractice to bring his claim for damages. However, La. R.S. 9:5628 also recognizes an exception to this one-year prescription period, when the plaintiff claims he was unaware of the malpractice and there was a delay in the discovery of the alleged malpractice. This is known as the “discovery rule.”

Under the discovery rule, the prescriptive period begins to run on the date the injured party obtains actual or constructive knowledge of facts “indicating to a reasonable person that he or she is the victim of a tort.”^ Constructive knowledge is “whatever notice is enough to excite attention and put the injured person on guard and call for inquiry.”^ When a plaintiff has knowledge of facts strongly suggesting that the complaint may be the result of improper treatment, and the medical provider has not misled the patient, then “the cause of action is reasonably knowable to plaintiff.”*

The court recently examined these principles in In re Singleton, where the plaintiff relied upon the discovery rule to assert a malpractice claim against his medical provider. The plaintiff alleged his physician negligently performed a lumbar procedure in May 2017. The plaintiff initiated proceedings against the medical provider on February 6, 2019, alleging he did not discover the alleged malpractice until February 10, 2018, when he experienced a “sudden onset of excruciating pain.”

In response to the plaintiff’s claim, the medical provider produced evidence to show the plaintiff went to the emergency room on November 21, 2017, with complaints of severe lower back pain that radiated into his hips and legs. Based upon this evidence, the defendant doctor argued the actual date of delayed discovery was November 21, 2017, and that the plaintiff’s claims prescribed because they were filed more than one year after that date.

The court agreed. It held the medical provider met his burden of proof when he presented evidence that “severe” or “excruciating” pain, which allegedly advised plaintiff of his claim, was first experienced in November 2017, not February 2018 as alleged in plaintiffs’ complaint. The plaintiff was unable to produce any evidence to support the allegations in his complaint about the timing of his episode of pain or to refute the medical provider’s arguments. Therefore, the plaintiff could not show his claim of delayed discovery until February 2018 was “reasonable.” The court affirmed that the date of discovery was in November 2017, and therefore the plaintiff’s claims prescribed before suit was filed in February 2019.

References:

In re Singleton, 23-190 (La. App. 5 Cir. 2/28/24), 2024 WL 826169.

^Campo v. Correa, 01-2707 (La. 6/21/02), 828 So.2d 502.

*Carter v. Haygood, 892 So.2d 1261, 1273 (La. 2005).

A Workers’ Compensation Judge in Monroe, Louisiana found that a claimant met his burden of proving that a specific mosquito bite at work caused him to contract the West Nile Virus, resulting in permanent total disability.

At trial, the claimant asserted that “he specifically remembers being bitten on his left leg by a mosquito” while working in the break room of his employer, Graphic Packaging. Claimant presented evidence that mosquitoes were present at the work site, although his purported eyewitness to the event (who also contracted the disease) was proven to have not been at work that day.

The director of the Ouachita Parish Mosquito Abatement District was offered by the claimant and testified that there was a prevalence of mosquitoes in Ouachita Parish during that summer which carried the West Nile Virus. Mosquitoes trapped near both the employer’s location and the claimant’s house tested positive. According to the director, the only way to determine if a mosquito is infected with West Nile is to have that particular mosquito tested. An expert epidemiologist for the employer added that the most commonly infected mosquitoes would not have been active during the middle of the day when the claimant alleges he was bitten.

Based upon the testimony of the claimant, his witness, and the experts, the Workers’ Compensation Judge ruled that the claimant had sufficiently proven that the specific mosquito infected with the West Nile Virus had bitten him at work. The court also stung the employer and its workers’ compensation insurer with penalties and attorneys' fees, finding that they had not contested the claim on a reasonable basis.

The Court of Appeal in Allen vs. Graphic Packaging, No. 51,080 (La. App. 2d Cir. 1/11/17), - - So 3d - -, upheld the Workers’ Compensation Judge. The court noted that all proof of the “accident” rested upon circumstantial evidence and that the claimant possessed no direct evidence that the break room mosquito carried the disease. In this setting, the claimant “faced a burden of proof to show circumstantially that the break room mosquito carried the disease.” Utilizing the “manifest error or clearly wrong standard,” the appellate court held that the claimant had met his burden despite his indirect proof.

The Allen court ultimately reversed the finding of permanent total disability, because the Workers’ Compensation Judge misapplied the statutory requirements. It also reversed the award of penalties and attorneys' fees noting that “there were numerous factors sufficient to validate Graphic’s reasonable controversion of Allen’s claim.”

In a case handled by Keogh Cox lawyers Steve Whitlow and Jenny McLin, a Louisiana court of appeal has affirmed the ruling of a Workers Compensation Judge holding that an employee who made misrepresentations about his claim forfeited his right to workers compensation benefits. Arguello v. Brand Energy, 13-CA-990 (La. App. 5th Cir. 5/21/14), ___ So. 3rd ___.

In ruling for the employer, the trial court found that the claimant had committed three separate violations of La.R.S. 23:1208. The claimant was also assessed with a $500 civil penalty payable to the Kids Chance Scholarship Program.