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No. 128864
| Patricia A. Pappas, Personal Representative of |
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Michael T. Reinholm |
| the Estate of Florinda C. Pappas, Deceased, |
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Plaintiff-Appellee, |
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(Appeal from Ct of Appeals) |
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(Macomb - Servitto, D.) |
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| Bortz Health Care Facilities, Inc., and Warren |
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Paul R. Bernard |
| Geriatric Village, Inc., d/b/a Bortz Health Care of |
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| Warren, |
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| Defendants-Appellants. |
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| __________________________________________ |
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Plaintiff-Appellee's Brief in Opposition to Application for Leave to Appeal>>
Plaintiff-Appellee's Supplemental Brief>>
Defendants-Appellants' Application for Leave to Appeal>>
Defendants-Appellants' Supplemental Brief>>
Background
Florinda Pappas suffered from senile dementia and other debilitating conditions and was a patient at the defendants’ long-term care facility. Florinda fell several times between August 1996 and March 1997. As a result of a fall on March 26, 1997, Florinda underwent surgery the next day. She later returned to the facility, where she lived in an even more diminished capacity until her death four years later, on July 13, 2001. Her daughter Patricia Pappas was appointed personal representative of Florinda’s estate on July 16, 2002. On June 2, 2003, Pappas sued the defendants for medical malpractice, claiming that they negligently failed to monitor Florinda and prevent her from falling and injuring herself repeatedly while in their care. The defendants moved for summary disposition, arguing that the lawsuit was barred by the statute of limitations. The defendants contended that the wrongful death savings provision, MCL 600.5852, was inapplicable because Florinda did not die before the two-year medical malpractice statute of limitations had run, and that MCL 600.5851, which tolls the statute of limitations in cases of insanity, did not save the action because under that statute, Pappas had only one year after Florinda’s death to file suit. The trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary disposition, finding that the applicable statute of limitations expired on March 27, 1999. Pappas appealed. In an unpublished opinion, the Court of Appeals held that summary disposition was inappropriate because there was a factual question as to whether the “discovery rule” of MCL 600.5838a(2) had run at the time of Florinda’s death; if objective facts demonstrated that Florinda could not have discovered the cause of action before her death, she would have died before the six-month period of limitation had run under this subsection, triggering the wrongful death savings act, the Court of Appeals stated. The appeals court reversed the grant of summary disposition to the defendants and remanded the case for trial. The defendants appeal.
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