We have been seeing and experiencing in our own medical and dental malpractice cases a disturbing trend. Defendants are filing Motions to Dismiss malpractice lawsuits on the ground that the written opinion attached to the lawsuit does not comply with General Statutes Section 52-190a. The statute requires that a plaintiff in filing a medical or dental malpractice lawsuit must attach to the lawsuit a copy of a written opinion authored by a similar health care provider stating that malpractice occured and as a result of the malpractice the plaintiff suffered injuries. The identifying information of the author of the report is redcated when attached to the lawsuit.
Nothwithstanding the fact that Section 52-190a does not require that the author of the written opinion broadcast that he or she is a similar health care provider, defendants are routinely injecting such a requirement into the statue and using it as the basis for a Motion to Dismiss. The case law is virtually unanimous in holding that the statute has no such requirement, thus the lawsuit cannot be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
In one of our pending dental malpractice cases, the Court just rejected defendant’s argument that the written opinion was defective due to the fact that it did not state that the author of the opinion was a similar health care provider. The motion to dismiss was denied.
