Camacho

INTRODUCTION

Ramon Camacho died from a ruptured aortic dissection four days after he was released from Sharp Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Department. Surviving family members (collectively, Plaintiffs) sued the hospital, medical group, the emergency room doctor, and Does 1 through 50 for medical negligence and wrongful death. The parties stipulated at a case management conference to dismiss the Doe defendants. Less than a month later, Sharp Memorial Hospital (Sharp) notified Plaintiffs its radiologist identified aortic dilation on Camacho’s CT scan. Shortly thereafter, Plaintiffs filed a motion to amend the complaint to add Dr. Scott M. Boles, the radiologist who reviewed Camacho’s CT scan while he was in the emergency department. Boles filed a motion for summary judgment, contending he lacked liability, the statute of limitations barred the action, and the relation-back doctrine did not apply because he was not substituted in for a Doe defendant, as required by Code of Civil

Procedure1 section 474. The court concluded there were material facts in dispute regarding liability, but it granted the motion and entered judgment in Boles’s favor because it concluded the procedural…