Honey Torretti, a diabetic women residing in Pennsylvania, complained of pain and discomfort during a routine pregnancy checkup with her doctor, who sent her to a hospital for additional monitoring of her high-risk pregnancy. There, Torretti gave birth to her second child via emergency caesarean section. She later sued Main Line Hospitals and several doctors under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”) after her son was born with “traumatic brain injuries.” EMTALA was enacted in the 1980s to stop emergency rooms from, among other things, refusing care to patients and transferring them to other hospitals without stabilizing them first, or “patient dumping.”
The trial court granted Main Line Hospitals summary judgment, ruling that Torretti had not presented sufficient evidence that her doctor knew a medical emergency was imminent when he sent her to another hospital for monitoring. On appeal, Torretti argued that, because she is a diabetic and had a high-risk pregnancy, each visit to her doctor would qualify as “presentment of an emergency medical condition to trigger EMTALA coverage.” However, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals noted that such a trigger would broaden the scope of EMTALA beyond Congress’s intent, stating the following:
We believe it is clear that Congress did not intend EMTALA to cover these individuals every time they come to the hospital for their [routinely scheduled] appointments, even though they suffer from serious medical conditions that risk becoming emergent.
The court also noted that EMTALA was “not a federal malpractice statute,” although Torretti may be able seek recovery in some other form.
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