Yanakos v. UPMC

218 A.3d 1214

Christopher G. YANAKOS, Susan Kay Yanakos and William Ronald Yanakos, Her Husband, Appellants

v.UPMC, University of Pittsburgh Physicians, Amadeo Marcos, M.D. and Thomas Shaw-Stiffel, M.D., Appellees

No. 10 WAP 2018

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued: October 24, 2018

Decided: October 31, 2019

JUSTICE MUNDY

Justice Mundy files the Opinion of the Court with respect to Part I and Part III to the extent supported by Justice Donohue as indicated in her concurring and dissenting opinion. Justice Mundy also files an opinion with respect to Part II, joined by Justices Todd and Dougherty, and announces the Judgment of the Court .

In this appeal by allowance, we consider whether the seven-year statute of repose in Section 1303.513(a) of the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Act (MCARE Act)¹ comports with Article I, Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which guarantees "[a]ll courts shall be open; and every man for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation shall have remedy by due course of law[.]" PA. CONST. art. I, § 11. Because we conclude the seven-year statute of repose is not substantially related to an important government interest, we reverse the Superior Court's order affirming the trial court's grant of judgment on the pleadings and remand for further proceedings.

I.

Susan Yanakos suffers from a genetic condition called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (AATD). Patients with AATD do not produce enough Alpha-1 Antitrypsin, a protein synthesized in the liver that plays an important role in protecting the lungs from damage. R.R. at 4a-5a. In the summer of 2003, one of Susan's physicians, Dr. Amadeo Marcos, advised her that she needed a liver transplant due to the progression of her AATD. Because Susan was not a candidate for a cadaver liver, her son Christopher volunteered to donate a lobe of his liver to his mother.

Christopher underwent an extensive medical evaluation to determine whether he was a suitable liver donor. As part of that process, and at Dr. Marcos's request, Dr. Thomas Shaw-Stiffel evaluated Christopher. Christopher advised Dr. Shaw-Stiffel that several of his family members suffered from AATD, but that he was unsure whether he did as well. Dr. Shaw-Stiffel ordered additional laboratory tests for Christopher, but never informed him of the results, which allegedly showed that Christopher had AATD and was not a candidate for liver donation.² One month after Christopher's consultation with Dr. Shaw-Stiffel, in September 2003, Dr. Marcos went forward with the operation, removing a portion of Christopher's liver and transplanting it into Susan.

More than twelve years later, in December 2015, Christopher, Susan, and Susan's husband, William Yanakos (collectively "the Yanakoses") sued UPMC, University of Pittsburgh Physicians, Dr. Marcos, and Dr. Shaw-Stiffel (collectively "Appellees"). In their complaint, the Yanakoses raised claims for battery/lack of informed consent, medical malpractice, and loss of consortium. The Yanakoses alleged that they did not discover Appellees' negligence until eleven years after the transplant surgery, when additional testing revealed that Susan still had AATD, which the transplant should have eliminated.

In their answer to the Yanakoses' complaint, Appellees raised the affirmative defense that the seven-year statute of repose³ in the MCARE Act barred the Yanakoses' claims. See 40 P.S. § 1303.513(a) (providing that "no cause of action asserting a medical professional liability claim may be commenced after seven years from the date of the alleged tort or breach of contract"). Appellees also filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings based on the MCARE Act's repose period.

The trial court concluded that it was bound by the plain language of the MCARE Act's seven-year statute of repose. The court explained that, while the MCARE Act contains two exceptions to the seven-year repose period, the Yanakoses' claims did not fall within either of those exceptions. Trial Ct. Op. at 5-6; see 40 P.S. § 1303.513(b) (exception for injuries caused by foreign objects left in a patient's body); 40 P.S. § 1303.513(c) (exception for malpractice claims commenced by or on behalf of a minor). Accordingly, the trial court granted Appellees' motion for judgment on the pleadings.

The Yanakoses appealed to the Superior Court, raising several constitutional challenges to the MCARE Act's seven-year statute of repose. Relevant to this appeal, the Yanakoses argued that the MCARE Act's repose period violates Article I, Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which provides in pertinent part that "[a]ll courts shall be open; and every man for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation shall have a remedy by due course of law, and right and justice administered without sale, denial or delay." PA. CONST. art. I, § 11. Citing appellate court decisions from states with Open Courts provisions much like our own, the Yanakoses urged the Superior Court to hold that the MCARE Act's statute of repose interfered with the Article I, Section 11 right of access to the courts because its exception for foreign object plaintiffs was "arbitrary and capricious." See Yanakoses' Super. Ct. Brief at 43-45 (relying on Berry v. Beech Aircraft Corp. , 717 P.2d 670, 680 (Utah 1985) ).

The Superior Court rejected the Yanakoses' argument. The panel explained that this Court, in Freezer Storage, Inc. v. Armstrong Cork Co. , 476 Pa. 270, 382 A.2d 715 (1978), held that a twelve-year statute of repose on claims against architects and builders did not violate the Open Courts provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution.⁴ Yanakos v. UPMC , 2017 WL 3168991, at * 7 (Pa. Super. 2017) (unpublished memorandum). The appellant in Freezer Storage argued only that the Open Courts provision precluded the legislature from abolishing a cause of action without implementing another remedy. Freezer Storage , 382 A.2d at 720. Although Freezer Storage rejected as nonbinding dicta language in earlier cases that had suggested the General Assembly might need to create an adequate substitute remedy in order to eliminate a common law cause of action,⁵ the decision in Freezer Storage was narrow. We did not hold that the legislature possesses an unlimited authority to modify the common law, nor did we articulate a concrete test for measuring the lawfulness of statutes that abolish or modify common law remedies. See id. at 721 ("To the extent that the dictum [in Dolan v. Linton's Lunch ] suggests that the Legislature may never abolish a judicially recognized cause of action, we decline to follow it."). Nevertheless, the Superior Court's conclusion that the MCARE Act's statute of repose did not violate Article I, Section 11 was based entirely upon the precept—announced in Freezer Storage —that the Constitution "does not prohibit the Legislature from abolishing a common law right of action without enacting a substitute means of redress." Yanakos , 2017 WL 3168991, at *7 (citing Freezer Storage , 382 A.2d at 720 ).

The Yanakoses filed a petition for allowance of appeal, arguing that the Superior Court misapplied Freezer Storage , and, in doing so, implicitly nullified the constitutional right to a remedy. We granted the Yanakoses' petition to consider whether the MCARE Act's seven-year statute of repose violates Article I, Section 11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.⁶ Yanakos v. UPMC , 646 Pa. 14, 183 A.3d 346 (Pa. 2018) (per curiam).

Before this Court, the Yanakoses argue that legislation which deprives medical malpractice victims of their right to file a civil action "must be subjected to exacting constitutional scrutiny." Yanakoses' Brief at 12. This is so, according to the Yanakoses, because the right to a remedy for every wrong is deeply rooted in the Anglo-American legal tradition and explicitly enshrined in the Pennsylvania Constitution. Id. at 14. The Yanakoses concede that the right to seek a remedy in the courts is not unfettered, and they acknowledge that the General Assembly may impose some limits on traditional common law theories of recovery. Even so, they argue that any such statutory restrictions or limits must be subject to intermediate scrutiny. Id. at 18-19 (recognizing this Court applied intermediate scrutiny to an Article I, Section 11 constitutional challenge in James v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority , 505 Pa. 137, 477 A.2d 1302, 1306 (1984) ).⁷

According to the Yanakoses, the MCARE Act's statute of repose cannot withstand intermediate scrutiny because the General Assembly clearly recognized the harshness of the statute of repose when it preserved access to courts for foreign object malpractice victims. Id. at 12; see also 40 P.S. § 1303.512(b) (providing that the statute of repose shall not apply "[i]f the injury is or was caused by a foreign object unintentionally left in the individual's body"). The Yanakoses contend that this distinction between foreign object malpractice claims and non-foreign object malpractice claims is not "substantially related to the government's important objective of reducing medical costs." Yanakoses' Brief at 35. In other words, the Yanakoses believe that the MCARE Act's statute of repose fails to withstand intermediate scrutiny "because, as applied, it bars the cause of action of some injured patients, while allowing others who were similarly injured to proceed." Id. at 20 (emphasis omitted). Along these lines, the Yanakoses assert that the law "goes beyond the government's legitimate purpose by unduly eliminating the important right of certain victims of medical malpractice from seeking any remedy through no fault of their own." Id.

Appellees, on the other hand, argue that "[t]he Open Courts provision only applies when a statute extinguishes a right (such as a cause of action or defense) after that right has already accrued/vested." UPMC's Brief at 10; see Ieropoli v. AC & S Corp. , 577 Pa. 138, 842 A.2d 919, 930 (2004) (ex...