Wisconsin ruling nixes key statute of limitations provisions

Doctors agree with the dissenting opinion that the court could have helped mend confusing laws instead.

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff. Jan. 30, 2006.

A 4-3 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision in December 2005 threw out the statute of limitations for medical liability cases involving developmentally disabled children. Along with it, physicians say the state's high court tossed their only remaining safeguard in these medical liability cases.

Doctors say they are disappointed yet again by the court that in July 2005 struck down the state's long-standing cap on noneconomic damages awarded in medical liability lawsuits.

The statute of limitations is an important issue for doctors because there has to be some finality in when people can file claims, said Ruth Heitz, the Wisconsin Medical Society's general counsel.

"The ability of health care professionals to defend against stale claims is almost impossible," she said.

But plaintiff attorneys say the ruling will have little impact on liability claims against doctors because it is limited to a small group of people.

In the lawsuit, 14-year-old Toby Haferman's parents allege that St. Clare Hospital in Baraboo, Wis. and family physician Donald W. Vangor, MD, caused their son's cerebral palsy when his brain was denied oxygen during critical moments before and after his birth in 1991. The physician and the hospital deny the allegations.

The central question for the Wisconsin Supreme Court was whether the case filed in 2002, 11 years after the alleged negligence, was brought before the statute of limitations for filing the case expired.

The debate was fueled by confusion over which of three laws relating to disabled children and medical liability applied. The Supreme Court reversed an appeals court decision that a three-year statute applied, allowing the Hafermans to go forward with their lawsuit. The court "determined that the Legislature has not provided a statute of limitations for claims against health care providers alleging injury to a developmentally disabled child," Judge Ann Walsh Bradley wrote. The opinion stated it was the only option without "rewriting the statutes or working an absurd and illogical result."