LaPierre v. Mandell & Blau, M.D.'s, P.C.

Syllabus

The plaintiff successor executor of the decedent's estate sought to recover damages from the defendants, a medical practice and three physicians, for injuries the decedent sustained when she allegedly fell off a table and, thereafter, out of a wheelchair while undergoing a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan at the defendants' MRI facility. The plaintiff claimed that the decedent's injuries were caused by the defendants' negligence. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the action on the ground that the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over them because the plaintiff's claim sounded in medical malpractice, and, therefore, pursu- ant to the statute (§ 52-190a) that governs medical malpractice actions, he was required to attach to his complaint an opinion letter written and signed by a similar health care provider, which he failed to do. Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss and rendered judgment dismissing the action, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the trial court properly dismissed the plaintiff's action for failing to comply with § 52-190a; contrary to the plaintiff's claim that the allegations of his complaint sounded in ordinary negligence, and, therefore, the opinion letter requirement of § 52-190a did not apply, this court determined that the three prongs of the test set forth in Boone v. William W. Backus Hospital (272 Conn. 551) for determining whether a claim sounds in medical malpractice were met by the allegations of the complaint, as the defen- dants were sued in their capacities as medical professionals, the alleged negligence occurred during the course of an MRI procedure at the defendants' facility and, therefore, necessarily involved treatment of a specialized medical nature that arose out of the medical professional- patient relationship, and the alleged negligent conduct of the defendants in their execution of the MRI procedure and in monitoring the decede