William Burnet v. Spokane Ambulance, Sacred Heart Medical Center, .

Summary

The Washington Supreme Court held that the Burnets' claim that Sacred Heart Medical Center was corporately negligent in credentialing Drs. Graham and Donlan was adequately pleaded, and that the trial court abused its discretion in excluding that issue and limiting discovery on it, because a claim and discovery may not be stripped from a case as a discovery sanction absent a finding of willful violation of a discovery order, no such finding was made and the record would not support one, and the court never considered lesser sanctions on the record. The judgment on the nurses' negligence claim was left undisturbed, and the case was remanded for trial on the negligent credentialing claim. Justice Talmadge, dissenting, joined by Chief Justice Durham and Justice Dolliver, would have affirmed, treating the order as a proper case-management ruling under CR 16/CR 26(f) and contending the Burnets waived review by failing to move to modify it.