In a Jan. 10 ruling with significant implications for the future of medical malpractice cases in Florida , the Third District Court of Appeal agreed with our interpretation of the law and clarified recent rulings regarding medical malpractice claims.

In the appeal of the lower court's summary judgment in the case of Esteva E. Michael v. Medical Staffing Network, Inc., et al. (case no. 3D05-2878), the appellate court reversed the lower court's decision and found that the state's medical malpractice statutes do not require that the pre-filing medical-expert affidavits contain the name, title or job descriptions of every prospective defendant in a case. The trial court had ruled on the basis that both the plaintiff's medical expert affidavit and the notice of intent failed to refer to a negligent nurse by either name or job description, in spite of the fact that defendant Jackson South Community Hospital had not provided the nurse's name to the plaintiff after our repeated requests.

The appellate court disapproved of procedural defenses that had previously enabled defendants to have cases dismissed on the basis of pre-filing technicalities. Instead, the court ruled that plaintiffs and their attorneys must sufficiently demonstrate that a reasonable investigation into the claim was undertaken, as was performed in this case. Judge Angel Cortiñas, in the unanimous ruling that included Judge John Fletcher and Judge Alan Schwartz, indicated that “there is an increasingly disturbing trend of prospective defendants attempting to use the statutory requirements as a sword against plaintiffs.”

The court's ruling has significant implications for medical malpractice victims in the state. With this decision, the court has struck a major blow for the rights of medical malpractice victims in Florida , and we are very proud to have prevailed for the Michael family in the matter.

The firm was assisted in the appeal by the highly regarded appellate firm of Billbrough & Marks.