General Info

Accidents
(except MVAs)

Types of Injury

Motor Vehicle Accidents

 

 

Yamane v Pohlson

In a recent unanimous opinion, Yamane v Pohlson, Case No. 27047 (June 27, 2006), the Hawaii Supreme Court reversed a lower court dismissal of a medical malpractice case. The case had been dismissed on the grounds that the claimants had only named the employer and had not named the individual doctor-employees who had committed the malpractice in their filing with the Medical Claims Conciliation Panel. (Under Hawaii law, filing a claim with the MCCP is generally a prerequisite to bringing a medmal claim in court). The Supreme Court held that filing the claims against the employer is sufficient under the doctrine of respondeat superior to meet the prerequisites for suit imposed by the MCCP. Note, however, that this ruling is limited in application and does not apply unless there is an actual employer-employee relationship between the responsible doctors and the employer pursued at the MCCP. Under some circumstances, however, this decision does avoid the need for a claimant to include all possible doctors by name in an MCCP proceeding.