Background
Kimberly Steenhoek’s estate, husband, and daughter sued Dr. Archana Verma and Iowa Digestive Disease Center, P.C., alleging that Verma negligently performed an outpatient endoscopic procedure that caused Steenhoek’s death. The district court set May 14, 2024, as the deadline for summary-judgment motions.
Twenty-two days after that deadline, Verma sought dismissal under Iowa Code section 147.140(6), arguing that the plaintiffs’ certificate of merit was neither a proper affidavit nor signed under penalty of perjury. The district court agreed that the certificate was deficient, rejected the plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge, and held that Verma had not waived dismissal because the statute contains no express filing deadline.
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Court of Appeals reversed. Applying the Iowa Supreme Court’s bright-line waiver rule, the majority held that medical-malpractice defendants waive their right to dismissal under section 147.140(6) when they challenge a certificate of merit after the applicable dispositive-motion deadline.
The court treated Verma’s challenge as a summary-judgment motion because resolving it required consideration of the certificate itself, which was evidence outside the pleadings. The applicable deadline was therefore the court-ordered May 14 summary-judgment deadline, not the later deadline for other pretrial motions. Because that deadline had expired before Verma filed her challenge, the later postponement of trial and resetting of deadlines did not make the motion timely. The court remanded for further proceedings without reaching the plaintiffs’ remaining arguments.
Key Takeaways
- A challenge to a medical-malpractice certificate of merit must be filed before the applicable dispositive-motion deadline or the statutory right to dismissal is waived.
- When a certificate challenge depends on material outside the pleadings, a separately established summary-judgment deadline supplies the relevant bright line.
- Resetting the trial and motion deadlines after an untimely challenge is filed does not retroactively cure the waiver.
Why It Matters
The decision applies Iowa’s certificate-of-merit waiver rule to defendants who file after the dispositive-motion deadline, making clear that the deadline operates as a true cutoff rather than merely a safe harbor for earlier motions. Defendants must identify and raise certificate defects before that deadline even when section 147.140 itself states no filing deadline.
The ruling revives the plaintiffs’ malpractice action but does not decide its merits. Verma may still assert merits-based defenses on remand, although she may not renew the certificate-of-merit challenge. Presiding Judge Badding dissented, reasoning that the motion was properly treated as a motion to dismiss and was timely under the scheduling plan’s later deadline for other dispositive motions.