A man who sued an Illinois state hospital for wrongly resuscitating his father can’t keep his medical battery lawsuit in Cook County court by later adding three doctors to the action, a state appeals panel has ruled.
On Dec. 6, a three-justice panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court determined plaintiff James Redmond waited too long to sue doctors he claimed should be held accountable for allegedly violating his father’s do-not-resuscitate order while providing care at University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago.
The decision was authored by Justice David W. Ellis, with justices James Fitzgerald Smith and Cynthia Y. Cobbs concurring.
The ruling upheld the order issued by Cook County Judge Melissa Durkin, dismissing Redmond’s claims.
Redmond had sued the U of I Hospital and “unknown others” in 2019 on behalf of his father, Carl Redmond, claiming medical battery, infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy. That lawsuit was filed in Cook County court.
In his lawsuit, Redmond claimed the hospital should be made to pay for actions taken by medical professionals working there to revive Carl Redmond, despite a DNR in place.
According to court documents, Carl Redmond had been transferred to the U of I Hospital to receive care from an oncologist.
Following the resuscitation, Carl Redmond was removed from life support and died two days later.
In his initial complaint, Redmond referenced actions taken by three doctors, identified as Jacqueline Galvan, Jarna Shah and Jessica Kuppy. However, in that initial complaint, Redmond did not name any of the doctors as defendants.
In response to the lawsuit, U of I Hospital asked the Cook County court to dismiss Redmond’s claims. They asserted that under state law, they could not be sued in the county court, but could only be sued in the Illinois Court of Claims in Springfield, because they were a state-owned institution.
However, rather than contest that motion, Redmond sought to amend the complaint to instead sue the three doctors. While time limits in the law would otherwise bar a suit against those doctors, Redmond argued he should be allowed to add them as defendants, because he had referenced them in the earlier complaint by name.
He said this means the new claims thus “relate back” to the original claims.
Judge Durkin ultimately determined Redmond’s alterations came too late, and ordered the case dismissed.
Redmond appealed, but found no support from the First District justices, either.
In the opinion, Justice Ellis said it was not enough that Redmond claimed he had referenced the doctors in his original complaint.
Further, the court agreed with Durkin that Redmond’s decision to sue the state-owned hospital as the sole named defendant was no mistake needing to be corrected in an amended complaint.
The justices noted Redmond knew specifically which doctors were involved in his father’s care at the time of the resuscitation, yet chose not to sue them.
“This is not a case where plaintiff (Redmond) meant to sue the individual doctors but inadvertently sued the Hospital in a case of mistaken identity,” Ellis wrote. “Plaintiff was obviously well aware of the difference, and the Hospital was a perfectly appropriate party to hold accountable—it was just one that, it so happened, could not be sued in circuit court because of its status as a State actor.
“The doctors, reviewing the original complaint, could not possibly have considered the situation to be one of literal mistaken identity.”
The justices further rejected Redmond’s attempt to argue around the problem by claiming that, while he knew which doctors had cared for his father, he could not know which doctors were responsible for allegedly violating his father’s DNR.
The justices credited Redmond with a “creative argument.” But said it ultimately failed, for the same reasons as his earlier claims.
“The original complaint identified the actions taken by the Hospital’s agents—the resuscitation, despite the existence of a DNR on file—and the various causes of action that this action spawned,” Ellis wrote. “The three doctors here would reasonably understand that the plaintiff knew that they were doctors who took part in the resuscitation, yet the plaintiff chose not to sue them individually.
“A reasonable person in these doctors’ shoes would not understand that the plaintiff was attempting to distinguish between the doctors following orders and the one giving them out.”
The justices concluded the lawsuit against the doctors was time-barred, and upheld Judge Durkin’s order to dismiss.
Redmond is represented by attorney TJ Jesky, of Chicago.
The doctors have been represented by attorneys Jillian Book and Catherine Ó Súilleabháin, of Anderson, Rasor & Partners, of Chicago.