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Court of Appeal:
MICRA’s Limit on Damages Does Not Apply To Actions Brought Under Elder Abuse Act
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal yesterday affirmed a judgment against health care providers for noneconomic damages of more than $2.4 million for one former patient and nearly $2 million for another, holding that the statutory limitation on such damages based on professional negligence does not apply where liability is founded on negligent, hiring, supervising and retaining of an employee who committed sexual abuse of elderly victims.
“Civil Code section 3333.2, known as the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 (MICRA), limits noneconomic damages to $250,000 based on professional negligence,” Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert of Div. Six wrote. “Here we decide this limitation does not apply to plaintiffs’ causes of action under the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act….”
The defendants were Signature Healthcare Services, LLC and Aurora Vista Del Mar, LLC, one of 17 behavioral health hospitals it operates in California and five other states, along with its former employee Juan Valencia, who was a mental health worker. He engaged in sexual intercourse with three elderly psychiatric patients who were incapable of consenting.
Multi-Million Dollar Judgments
A jury awarded one patient, who was not a party to the appeal, $6.5 million in noneconomic damages and $50,000 in punitive damages; one appellant was awarded $3.75 million and the other $3 million in noneconomic damages plus exemplary damages of $50,000 each. Valencia was found 35 percent responsible.
Valencia had been arrested in 1989 for sexual penetration with a foreign object and unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor; he pled guilty to the latter offense, which does not require registration as a sex offender; the felony conviction was later reduced to a misdemeanor and dismissed. The conviction was not ascertained by a company that did a background check on Valencia when he applied for employment.
His conduct, while the subject of rumors among staff members—who dubbed him “Rapey Juan”—did not spark administrative action against him.
Their neglect, Gilbert said, gives rise to liability under the Elder Abuse Act. He noted that under that act, Welfare and Institutions Code §15600(j) spells out, “interested persons” may “engage attorneys to take up the cause of abused elderly persons and dependent adults.”
The jurist contrasted this with the purpose of MICRA: “to discourage medical malpractice suits.”
More Than Negligence
He pointed out that under Welfare and Institutions Code §15657.2, professional negligence, standing alone is governed by MICRA—but added that there was more than that.
Gilbert quoted Justice Stanley Mosk (now deceased) as saying in the California Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Delaney v. Baker, that for remedies under the Elder Abuse Act to Apply, “a plaintiff must demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that defendant is guilty of something more than negligence; he or she must show reckless, oppressive, fraudulent, or malicious conduct.” That standard was met in the present case, Gilbert found, declaring:
“There is more than ample evidence to support a finding of recklessness under the clear and convincing standard.”
MICRA Doesn’t Apply
Damages were, accordingly, not affected by MICRA’s $250,000 ceiling, he said, adding that this also disposes of the contention by Signature and Aurora that the actions, brought more than one year after the events complaint of, were subject to MICRA’s one-year statute of limitation. Gilbert wrote:
“Here, as in Delaney, the jury found both professional negligence and reckless neglect. Under Delaney, the Plaintiffs are not bound by the laws specifically applicable to professional negligence. That includes MICRA and the one-year limitation of actions contained therein. Although Plaintiffs’ cause of action based on professional negligence may be barred by the statute of limitations, their cause of action for elder abuse is not.
The time bar under Elder Abuse Act is four years and both plaintiffs brought their actions within two years.
The case is Samantha B. v. Aurora Vista Del Mar, LLC, 2021 S.O.S. 6699.
Copyright 2021, Metropolitan News Company