Background
Constance Bowen received treatment at Beaumont Hospital Farmington Hills, Hartford Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, and Mission Point of Detroit between April and July 2020. During that period, she developed or experienced worsening pressure injuries, including a stage-four sacral ulcer with bone exposure. Bowen died on July 13, 2020, and her death certificate identified sepsis and the stage-four sacral decubitus ulcer as causes of death.
Her estate sued the facilities for medical malpractice. Beaumont and Hartford sought summary disposition based principally on immunity under Michigan’s Pandemic Healthcare Immunity Act, and Mission Point concurred in their motions. After the estate failed to respond by the court-ordered deadline, the circuit court treated the motions as unopposed, granted summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10), and dismissed the claims with prejudice. It later denied reconsideration, rejecting counsel’s unsupported assertion that an e-filing clerical problem had prevented timely notice.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals reversed the summary-disposition award and remanded for further proceedings. Although the circuit court acted within its discretion by enforcing its scheduling orders, treating the motions as unopposed, and denying reconsideration, an unanswered dispositive motion still must establish that judgment is legally appropriate. The defendants therefore were required to demonstrate entitlement to Pandemic Healthcare Immunity Act immunity on the merits.
They did not do so. The statute requires a connection between the healthcare services that allegedly caused the injury and services supporting Michigan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not enough that the defendants generally provided pandemic-related services or that Bowen’s treatment occurred during the statute’s immunity period. The defendants’ motions failed to establish the required nexus between the pandemic and the allegedly negligent care of Bowen’s pressure wounds; Hartford’s reference to a telehealth wound assessment did not establish that connection, and Mission Point supplied no independent evidence or substantive argument. Beaumont’s new reliance on medical records showing COVID-19 evaluation and testing also could not support affirmance because those records were not presented below and, in any event, testing alone did not connect the alleged wound-care negligence to pandemic-related services.
Key Takeaways
- The Pandemic Healthcare Immunity Act does not immunize every healthcare service rendered during its March 29 through July 13, 2020 coverage period.
- A provider seeking immunity must establish a nexus between the alleged malpractice and healthcare services supplied in support of Michigan’s COVID-19 response.
- A court may enforce a briefing deadline and treat a dispositive motion as unopposed, but it still must determine whether the motion establishes entitlement to judgment as a matter of law.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that temporal overlap with the COVID-19 emergency is not enough to obtain statutory immunity. Healthcare defendants must connect the particular care underlying the malpractice claim to their pandemic-response services.
It also distinguishes the procedural consequence of an unanswered summary-disposition motion from an automatic merits victory: even without opposition, the moving party must present a legally sufficient basis for dismissal.