Tennessee Supreme Court Clarifies Pre-Suit Notice Requirements in Wrongful Death Lawsuit

The Tennessee Supreme Court today held that a woman who filed a wrongful death lawsuit complied with the state’s health care liability pre-suit notice statute when she identified herself as the claimant authorizing the notice and the mother of the patient.

Bobbie Jo Denson sent pre-suit notice and later filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of her minor grandchildren under Tennessee’s Health Care Liability Act.   The Act requires that pre-suit notice include “[t]he name and address of the claimant authorizing the notice and the relationship to the patient.”  Bobbie Jo Denson was the mother of Ashley Denson, who died after being treated at the defendant hospital. After her daughter’s death, Bobbie Jo Denson gained legal custody of her daughters’ two minor children. In the pre-suit notice, Denson did not identify her grandchildren as the claimants but identified herself as the claimant authorizing the notice and listed that she was the deceased’s mother.

After she filed the lawsuit, defendants filed motions to dismiss, arguing she did not substantially comply with pre-suit notice requirements because the minor children were not identified in the pre-suit notice.  The trial court found that Denson substantially complied with the pre-suit notice requirements.  A divided panel of the Court of Appeals reversed, finding she did not.  The dissent agreed with the trial court that she substantially complied.

The Supreme Court reversed and held that Denson complied with the pre-suit notice statute because she properly identified herself as the claimant authorizing the notice and her relationship to the patient. Because they were minors, the grandchildren were unable to give pre-suit notice and file the lawsuit.

To read the Supreme Court’s opinion in Denson v. Methodist Medical Center, authored by Justice Dwight E. Tarwater, visit the opinions section of TNCourts.gov.