ALLENTOWN – A federal magistrate judge has decreed that a hospital company pay $500 in sanctions, for its role in prejudicing the discovery of parent plaintiffs suing it for negligence relating to an alleged delay in delivering their son.
A Jan. 8 ruling from U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy R. Rice established that defendants Northampton Hospital Company and Northampton Clinic Company failed to produce critical records to plaintiffs Ashley and David Pugh.
“After the Pughs first requested hospital records in April 2020, the Northampton defendants stonewalled, blanketly asserting that the straightforward interrogatories were somehow ‘vague, ambiguous, overly broad and unduly burdensome,” Rice stated.
“In so doing, defendants missed a critical opportunity to secure key documents concerning plaintiffs’ theory of liability. By July 2020, ownership of the hospital had transferred, and defendants claim that with the sale, they lost access to the documents. Defendants then ignored an order compelling them to produce or at least account for the requested discovery. They now blame uncooperative third parties for this predicament. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
The Pughs argued the Northampton defendants were responsible for the lost documents and sought the following sanctions: 1) A direction that their allegations of undue delay in delivering their son have been established for the purposes of litigation; 2) A direction that the undue delay was a proximate cause of their son’s injuries for the purposes of litigation; and 3) $500 for attorneys’ fees and costs related to litigating the instant motion.
Rice explained he did not approve of the defendants’ conduct in failing to collect and preserve the necessary documents.
“Had defendants begun to collect documents after the lawsuit was filed in February 2020 or responded in good faith to plaintiffs’ discovery requests in spring 2020, they likely could have accessed the requested documents before the July 2020 sale of the hospital. Moreover, defendants’ conduct prejudiced the Pughs, who seek to prove that defendants’ failure to provide a timely caesarian section caused their son’s birth injuries,” Rice said.
“According to the Pughs, they requested a caesarian section but did not have one because no staff appeared to perform it. Thus, the Pughs’ case will be significantly prejudiced without access to hospital documents identifying staff who worked during this time period, information about potential staff shortages or delay, timesheets, policies and procedures and documents showing the assembly of staff who delivered their son. These documents have the potential to show whether the delay was due to inadequate staffing or another factor, essential evidence in this matter.”
Despite the Northampton defendants requesting depositions as a substitution for gathering information it was obligated to preserve, Rice decided that in the instant case, “depositions would not cure the prejudice caused by defendants’ failure to preserve and produce the requested documents.”
Furthermore, though Rice found the Northampton defendants “demonstrated an unwillingness to seriously conduct discovery, he also “did not find that they or their counsel acted in bad faith.” Nevertheless, Rice found sanctions “were warranted because of the severe prejudice to the Pughs and the lack of a fair cure.”
“After weighing the determinative factors, I find that sanctions are warranted against defendants due to their failure to timely obtain the documents and the prejudice to the Pughs, who should not bear the burden of their loss,” Rice concluded.
“I can remedy this imbalance of access to pertinent discovery by finding that the allegation of undue delay that the documents might have supported has been established. I also order Northampton defendants to pay $500 for the costs associated with litigating this motion. The issue of causation is unrelated to the absence of records and shall be decided by the jury.”
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 5:20-cv-00630
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com