In today's decision in Clarke v. OHSU, the Court of Appeals (Edmonds, J.) held that the the provision of the Oregon Tort Claims Act providing that all claims against agents/officers/employees of a public body must proceed against the public body instead of the individual defendants violated Article I, section 10 of the Oregon Constitution, "as applied in this case to plaintiff's complaint." The court summarized its holding as follows:
In summary, we conclude that, as applied to plaintiff's claims against individual tortfeasors at this stage of the proceedings and based on his allegations of injuries and damages, the provision of the OTCA that makes a remedy against OHSU "the sole cause of action for any tort of officers, employees or agents of a public body" violates Article I, section 10. It may be that, after plaintiff's damages are actually determined at trial, the constitutionality of the OTCA's exclusive remedy provision under Article I, section 10, will not be implicated. However, based on the record before us, if plaintiff is limited to a $200,000 recovery against OHSU and has no remedy against the individual defendants, and if plaintiff has suffered the damages he alleges, then he has been denied a substantial substitute remedy in violation of Article I, section 10. Accordingly, the trial court erred by entering judgment on the pleadings disposing of plaintiff's claims against the individual defendants.
The court also rejected constitutional challenges to other provisions of the OTCA.
Could someone translate the above into simple English for me? I'm an MD and would like to give free health care to my neighbors in Oregon. But I've been warned that Oregon has no malpractice protection for volunteer docs (ie, legislation assuring that volunteer health care providers can't be sued). How does the above, and the Oregon Tort Claims Act in general, relate to this issue?
Many thanks,
Janine Jason, M.D.
Posted by: Janine Jason | August 17, 2007 at 10:28 AM