The most vulnerable of Georgians suffered a significant defeat last week that will make it more difficult for them to recover for injuries that they suffer as a result of a medical professional’s negligence. Under Georgia law, the mentally incompetent are ordinarily entitled to the tolling of their personal injury claims until their disability is removed. O.C.G.A. §§ 9-3-90(a), 9-3-91. But the Georgia General Assembly has refused, in all but three circumstances, to toll medical malpractice claims (whether the claimant is mentally incompetent or not):
[A]ll persons who are legally incompetent because of mental retardation or mental illness . . . shall be subject to the periods of limitation for actions for medical malpractice provided in this article.
O.C.G.A. § 9-3-73(b). The three exceptions apply to foreign object cases, unrepresented estates, and actions for contribution. O.C.G.A. §§ 9-3-73(e), 9-3-92, 51-12-32(b). The legislature’s refusal to toll the statute of limitations in all other medical malpractice cases is supposedly the result of the legislature’s stated finding that
a reasonable relationship exists between the provisions, goals, and classifications of this Code section and the rational, legitimate state objectives of providing quality health care, assuring the availability of physicians, preventing the curtailment of medical services, stabilizing insurance and medical costs, preventing stale medical malpractice claims, and providing for the public safety, health, and welfare as a whole.
A federal district court in the Southern District of Georgia failed to see the rational relationship between the statute and the legislature’s objectives. In Deen v. Egleston, 601 F. Supp. 2d 1331 (S.D. Ga. 2009), the court held that, because none of the stated objectives were served by denying the mentally incompetent the benefits of tolling, there was no rational basis for treating the mentally incompetent differently from those with malpractice claims based on foreign objects, those who had been killed by the act of alleged malpractice, or those with contribution claims. In reaching this conclusion, the district court concluded that limiting medical practice lawsuits could bear no rational relationship to Georgia’s interest in assuring quality healthcare because:
Experience and experimentation in the states has shown that medical malpractice lawsuits are not a major driver of skyrocketing healthcare costs. The Court doubts whether medical malpractice lawsuits were ever a real part of the healthcare problem, with respect to rising costs, in this country. The impetus behind the special legislation for medical malpractice cases appears to have been based on either misunderstanding of the problem of healthcare expenses, or an outright boondoggle.
On appeal, the 11th Circuit of Court of Appeals saw things differently. Although it expressly refused to take sides or weigh in on whether or how healthcare ought to be reformed, the panel cites a number of cases in which other circuit courts of appeal have concluded that legislation that limits malpractice actions is indeed rationally related to the goals of improving healthcare. Again, according to the 11th Circuit, those cases do not necessarily establish the rational relationship; they simply demonstrate that there is an ongoing debate and, apparently, that is enough:
[I]t is quite enough to note the existence of a viable, ongoing debate, and determine that Georgia’s approach to a particularly thorny legislative problem–embodied in its statutes of limitations–is rational. What the district court did was wade far too deeply into the debate. There are powerful arguments on both sides of the issue, and it is for the legislature to weigh them and decide on that course which is most prudent.
And, with that, the 11th Circuit reversed the thoughtful district court order and struck a devastating blow to those who dare highlight the proven inefficacy of tort reform legislation.