Riccio v. Bristol Hospital, Inc.

Summary

The court affirmed dismissal of the plaintiff’s wrongful-death medical-malpractice action as time barred because the prior action was not dismissed for a qualifying matter of form under the accidental-failure-of-suit statute. The plaintiff failed to prove that counsel’s failure to include the opinion-letter authors’ qualifications resulted from mistake, inadvertence, or excusable neglect rather than gross negligence. The court rejected both a per se rule that ignorance of law is always gross negligence and the plaintiff’s contention that the trial court had failed to apply the required fact-intensive continuum.