Judge Powell of Lackawanna County Rules on Medical Practice Pleading Isssues

In the case of Menon v. Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center, No. 2024-CV-7436 (C.P. Lacka. Co. June 23, 2025, Powell, J.), Judge Mark Powell of the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas overruled various Preliminary Objections filed by the different medical Defendants to the Plaintiff’s medical malpractice Complaint.

This medical malpractice action arose from the death of a full-term newborn baby.

Relative to the Plaintiff’s claims of negligent infliction of emotional distress related to alleged negligent care during the late pregnancy stage and the delivery, the Defendants filed a demurrer. The Defendants asserted that the Plaintiffs failed to allege a contemporaneous sensory perception of the harm-producing event as required under Sinn v. Burd and Bloom v. Regional Medical Center.

The court disagreed and ruled that the Plaintiffs sufficiently pled a continuous traumatic sequence of events that included direct observation of the newborn’s distress and death. The court cited to the case of Neff v. Lasso, for the proposition that concept of sensory perception in this context under Pennsylvania law is not limited to visual observation but also includes awareness through experience and presence.

Judge Powell also overruled the Defendants’ objections regarding the lack of specificity with respect to the allegations of negligence and agency claims contained in the Complaint. The court held that, under Pennsylvania’s fact-pleading standard, Plaintiffs are not required to identify every employee and are not required to site specific hospital policies at issue at the pleadings stage.

Rather, the court found that, in this case, the Plaintiffs’ detailed allegations provided the Defendants with adequate notice of the claims presented. The court noted that the identity of unnamed agents could be ascertained through discovery efforts.

In this regard, the court emphasized that, in medical malpractice cases, Defendants typically control the relevant records and personnel information.

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.

Source: Lackawanna Jurist, Vol. 126, No. 27 (July 4, 2025).