Mississippi Nursing Home Nursing Home Escapes Liability on Technicality

The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of nursing home abuse neglect claim because the plaintiff failed to provide 60 days’ notice of the intention to file a medical malpractice action against a health care provider as required under Mississippi Code Section 15-1-36(15). This statute requires Mississippi nursing home and medical malpractice plaintiffs to health care provider’s sixty (60) days’ prior written notice notifying the defendant of the legal basis of the claim and the type of loss sustained, including with specificity the nature of the injuries suffered.

This statute comes from Mississippi’s disastrous tort reform act passed in 2002 that, among other things, establishes a cap on noneconomic damages of $ 500,000 for lawsuits filed before July 1, 2011, a cap of $ 750,000 for those filed after July 1, 2011, but before July 1, 2017, and a cap of $ 1,000,000 for those filed thereafter.

I do not have a problem with the ruling because it is a correct interpretation of the Mississippi law. But the law accomplishes nothing in this case but to deny a Plaintiff the right to justice.

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