Healthcare provider wants lawsuit dismissed

The St. Jude Renal Care Facility Inc. has asked the Superior Court to dismiss the lawsuit of a woman patient who had now passed away, arguing that no CNMI law allows a case to survive the death of a plaintiff.

Brien Sers Nicholas, on behalf of St. Jude Renal Care Facility, recently filed a motion for summary judgement that seeks to dismiss with prejudice Pilar Manglona Deleon Guerrero’s lawsuit. She reportedly died on April 19, 2023.

In the lawsuit, Deleon Guerrero had claimed that her foot had been burned while she was being treated at the St. Jude Renal Care Facility.

Dismissal with prejudice means the case cannot be refiled.

“There being no laws in this Commonwealth allowing this case to survive the death of the plaintiff, the defendant is entitled to the granting of the foregoing summary judgment motion and a judgment…dismissing this case with prejudice,” he said.

“This Commonwealth does not have any statute allowing for survival of tort claims, including fraud claims, upon the death of a victim. As such, when the plaintiff took her last breath [respectfully speaking], this case also ceased to survive before this court as a matter of law. Accordingly, this case cannot continue to exist before this court and must be dismissed as a matter of law, said dismissal to be retroactive to when the plaintiff died on April 19, 2023,” the lawyer added.

However, Deleon Guerrero’s attorney, Michael Dotts, is opposing the motion, arguing that modern common law allows claims to survive a plaintiffs’ death.

“At the heart of the motion for summary judgment filed by the defendant is the argument that plaintiff’s claims cannot survive her death. House Bill 23-61 that creates for CNMI residents the right to the survivorship of their claims has passed in the House and Senate and is now with the governor. It is anticipated that the statutory law will provide for the survivorship of claims, like those made by the plaintiff here, and it will be retroactive in its application. However, even if the law does not change, defendant here essentially relies on common law dating back to the late 1800s. The modern common law, properly interpreted, allows claims to survive claimant’s death and this principle should apply here. Further, deferral to the common law as interpreted by courts on the United States mainland and then collected and edited by the American Law Institute was an unconstitutional abrogation by the CNMI Legislature of the ability of the courts of the CNMI to make our own common law,” said Dotts.

Back in February 2022, Deleon Guerrero filed a civil lawsuit against St. Jude Renal Care for negligence, negligent supervision, negligent training, and medical malpractice after a nurse allegedly placed a heat lamp beside her left foot that later left it severely burned, resulting in the amputation of her leg.

According to the lawsuit, Deleon Guerrero, who suffers from Type 2 diabetes, requires dialysis three times a week and has been undergoing dialysis at the St. Jude Renal Care Facility from 2015 to 2020.

During a February 2020 dialysis session, Deleon Guerrero said her lower body felt cold so she asked a nurse for a way to keep warm. However, instead of giving her a blanket, the nurse placed a heating lamp right next to Deleon Guerrero’s left foot. Due to the exhaustion Deleon Guerrero experienced while undergoing dialysis, she fell asleep soon after the heating lamp was set up.

Due to her illness, Deleon Guerrero’s foot was numb to the point that she does not feel pain. In this case, the heating lamp was allegedly placed next to her foot for an extended amount of time and was not removed for her entire dialysis session, which lasted four to five hours.

According to Dotts, none of the nurses or staff at St. Jude gave Deleon Guerrero instructions on how to manage the lamp, when to contact a nurse, or to check on her feet after a certain period of time.

After her session, Deleon Guerrero’s left toes were allegedly visibly charred by the heating lamp.

On Feb. 24, 2020, Dotts said that Deleon Guerrero went to the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. to get the burn checked.

After numerous visits to CHCC, Deleon Guerrero’s post-burn foot ulcer was removed on April 1, 2020. Due to complication of her diabetes, the healing process of her left foot was not successful and sometime in April 2020, the top of her second left toe allegedly fell off by itself.

Partial amputation of her left foot was performed on May 15, 2020.

Deleon Guerrero then had numerous follow-up appointments for her burn injury and amputation from May 2020 to December 2020 at CHCC, but the condition of her left foot did not improve following the amputation, in part due to her diabetes.

On Dec. 29, 2020, the removal of the dead tissue on her left toe was performed, but her left toe did not get better.

On Jan. 7, 2021, an operation was performed to remove her left toe.

On Jan. 12, 2021, the plaintiff was referred to Guam to be seen by a foot specialist.

Due to a series of problems that allegedly originated from the burn injury she sustained at St. Jude, she went into surgery and her left leg below the knee was amputated in Guam on Feb. 22, 2021.

Dotts alleges that the infection that caused the amputation of Deleon Guerrero’s left leg spread to her right leg, causing her to undergo amputation of her right leg above the knee.

Soon after, due to her wounds not healing property, both of her legs were amputated a second time. The left leg was amputated a second time above the knee, and the right leg was amputated a second time to her mid-thigh.