William Plante, Sr. v. Charlotte Hungerford Hospital

Summary

The court held that failure to attach a qualifying medical-malpractice opinion letter does not implicate subject matter jurisdiction, so the plaintiffs could not invoke the jurisdictional ground of the accidental-failure-of-suit statute. The statute's matter-of-form provision can save a later action after dismissal under the opinion-letter statute only when the omission resulted from mistake, inadvertence, or excusable neglect, not egregious conduct or gross negligence. Because the plaintiffs relied on an obviously unqualified author, the action against the hospital defendants was time-barred, and the claims concerning the individual defendants were abandoned on appeal.