BY DAVID BELL
FOR THE OBSERVER
ALABAMA — Auburn University hosted a working session of the Alabama Supreme Court on March 14 at the Gogue Performing Arts Center, offering a rare opportunity for the public to observe the Court in action outside the state judicial building in Montgomery. The proceedings were conducted before an audience of faculty, students, staff and residents of the broader Auburn and Opelika communities.
The high court heard oral arguments in a medical malpractice case involving the death of a patient at a Montgomery hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nathaniel Johnson was admitted to Jackson Hospital on Nov. 26, 2020, where he was diagnosed with COVID-19. On Dec. 6, 2020, the hospital decided to transfer him to another floor at the facility. Johnson had been receiving oxygen through a BiPap machine, but because the machine lacked filters necessary to screen the patient’s exhaled air, the hospital did not believe it would be safe for the other patients for the hospital to transfer Johnson between floors while he was connected to the BiPap machine. Therefore, the hospital decided to take him off the machine.
What happened next is in dispute. Jackson Hospital claims that Johnson’s respiratory therapists immediately replaced the BiPap machine with an OxyMask, which continued to provide him with oxygen. However, his wife, Theresa Johnson, who at the time was a patient-care technician at Jackson Hospital, claims that she was in the room with her husband when the BiPap machine was removed and that he was never given an OxyMask or any other source of oxygen. After the respiratory therapists left the room with his equipment, Mr. Johnson went into distress. Medical personnel tried to save him but were unsuccessful.
On Sept. 10, 2021, Mrs. Johnson sued Jackson Hospital in Montgomery Circuit Court on her own behalf and as the representative of her husband’s estate, claiming medical malpractice, negligent/wanton training and supervision, loss of consortium and wrongful death. Jackson Hospital moved for summary judgement, arguing that it was immune from suit under Gov. Kay Ivey’s emergency proclamations and the Alabama Covid Immunity Act (ACIA), which was enacted by the state legislature on Feb. 12, 2021. Mrs. Johnson responded that the proclamations and the ACIA were unconstitutional and that, in the alternative, she had produced sufficient evidence of wantonness to invoke the ACIA’s exceptions.
The Act basically recognized the unprecedented challenges that would be facing health care providers in dealing with COVID-19 and the initial unknown factors regarding the best methods for treatment. Medical professionals were given greater latitude than the “standard” practices for combating medical emergencies, if those practices did not place patients in greater peril than the virus itself.
The Circuit Court ultimately denied Jackson Hospital’s motion, reasoning that Mrs. Johnson had invoked one of ACIA’s exceptions. Jackson Hospital then petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus, a written order from a higher court to a lower court, directing the Montgomery Circuit Court to enter a summary judgement for the hospital on grounds of immunity under the ACIA.
After hearing oral arguments from all parties involved, the Alabama Supreme Court must now decide whether to let the Circuit Court’s original ruling stand or to grant Jackson Hospital’s request that the Circuit Court be directed to give the hospital immunity. Either way, the case could set the standard for future medical emergency situations.
“I would say it has implications not just for a future COVID pandemic, but a pandemic that’s never been imagined,” said Steven Brown, Morris Savage Endowed Chair and director of AU’s Law and Justice program. “There’s going to be something else down the road, and when you have to come up with a crisis response plan, you are under pressure to act. To handcuff healthcare professionals so they can’t respond in a timely manner would seem to undermine the very thing they’re trying to do.”
“I think [Brown] is exactly right,” said Debra Armstrong-Wright, instructor and coordinator of AU’s Pre-Law program. “With the global society we have, this is only going to become more and more prevalent, so I think this is a very interesting and important case.”
The Alabama Supreme Court is under no specific deadline for issuing a ruling on the case.