Hospital Negligence Class Action Remanded to Louisiana State Court Preston v. Tenet Healthsystem Memorial Medical Officer Removal Statute; (2) the Multiparty, Center, Inc., 463 F. Supp. 2d 583 (E.D. La. Nov. Multiforum Trial Jurisdiction Act; (3) the Class Action Fairness Act; and (4) the Emergency 21, 2006) Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.2 Kathryn L. Burgess, 2L, University of Mississippi The purpose of the Federal Officer Removal School of Law Statute is to “provide a federal forum in cases where federal officials are entitled to raise a Background defense arising out of their duties.”3 Removal is After Hurricane Katrina hit, the conditions at only proper in the current case if LifeCare is a Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans person that acted under color of federal rapidly deteriorated. The hospital lost electrical power and the temperatures inside rose to over one hundred degrees. Sanitation systems backed up. When the levees broke, more than one thousand people were trapped inside the hospital as a result of the eightfoot-high flood waters. Teams used helicopters and boats to perform rescues, but some of the most vulnerable patients remained trapped inside, and an estimated thirty-five patients died during the crisis. In October, relatives of the deceased and injured patients filed a law- Photograph of rescue from New Orleans hospital courtesy of FEMA. suit in federal district court against Memorial Medical Center and LifeCare authority when committing a tortious act and Management Services, which operated an acute can assert a colorable defense. The court held care unit inside the hospital. The plaintiffs also that LifeCare failed to show that it acted under filed a class action suit asserting “various alle- color of federal authority in failing to maintain gations of negligence and intentional miscon- hospital conditions and putting an evacuation duct” and reverse patient dumping under the plan in motion sufficient to keep its patients Emergency Medical Treatment and Active alive. No federal officer exercised “direct and detailed” control of the hospital at any time Labor Act.1 during the crisis. Removal Claims The Multiparty, Multiforum Trial JurisThe plaintiffs filed a notice to remand the suit diction Act creates original federal jurisdiction to state court, but later withdrew that request. over “any civil action involving minimal diverSubsequently, Memorial resurrected the motion sity between adverse parties, where at least sevto remand. LifeCare filed a notice of removal to enty-five natural persons have died in the accikeep the case in federal court citing several dent at a discrete location and allows consolidabases for federal jurisdiction: (1) the Federal tion of cases relating to a common disaster.”4 See Hospital, page 22 Volume 6, No. 1 The SandBar
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