Appellate Court Affirms a Series of Dispositive Wins by Molshree Gupta to Plaintiffs’ Medical Malpractice Claims and Constitutional Challenge to MICRA

In recent related decisions, the California Court of Appeal has affirmed a series of substantial legal victories by Ms. Gupta in several actions alleging medical malpractice, wrongful death, infliction of emotional distress, as well as a purported class action to advance a constitutional challenge to the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 (“MICRA”)] – all filed by the same set of plaintiffs. The underlying initial claims arose from purported negligence in prescription of medication, and the plaintiffs also sought to add an equal protection constitutional challenge to MICRA – arguing that MICRA’s damages cap effectively deprives the financially challenged population from access to legal representation.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Los Angeles Superior Court’s denial of plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend their operative complaint to add a constitutional challenge to MICRA and the grant of demurrer to plaintiffs’ wrongful death claim. In addition to upholding the foregoing decisions, Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s grant of defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the remaining medical malpractice claim, and further affirmed the trial court’s denial of plaintiffs’ motion to appoint an expert witness to oppose the summary judgment motion (at defendants’ expense).

The foregoing series of appellate decisions collectively uphold trial court findings that the conduct of the defendants met the standard of care, and that the plaintiffs advanced no viable claims against the defendants; in addition, the appellate court found that the plaintiffs did not advance a viable constitutional equal protection challenge to MICRA.