Peek v. Manchester Memorial Hospital

Citations

• 193 Conn. App. 337

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendants for negligence for injuries she sustained while admitted to the defendant hospital. On February 10, 2015, while she was placed on fall prevention protocol, which required that she have assistance to leave her hospital bed, the plaintiff fell while using a restroom and sustained certain injuries. There- after, on April 6, 2015, the plaintiff was informed that a nurse or nurse's aide should have been responsible for her safety while at the defendant hospital. In November, 2016, the plaintiff received an automatic ninety day extension of the statute of limitations and delivered the action to the state marshal for service of process on May 22, 2017. The trial court granted a motion for summary judgment filed by the defendants and found that because the plaintiff suffered actionable harm on February 10, 2015, she should have brought the action, with the ninety day exten- sion, on or before May 10, 2017, and that the action was barred by the applicable statute of limitations (§ 52-584). On appeal, the plaintiff claimed that the trial court improperly determined that her action was barred by § 52-584. Held: 1. The plaintiff could not prevail on her claim that the statute of limitations was tolled by the continuous course of treatment doctrine; the continu- ous course of treatment doctrine applies only to the repose portion of § 52-584 and not to the discovery portion, which addresses the plaintiff's knowledge of the injury and not the defendant's act or omission, and because the plaintiff commenced her action within three years of the act or omission complained of, her action was not barred by the repose portion, and the continuing course of treatment doctrine was not applica- ble under the circumstances of this case. 2. The trial court improperly granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on the ground that the plaintiff's action was time barred, as the evidence before the court, viewed in the light most