Anyone who receives care at a military or VA hospital can’t avoid noticing that there are plenty of folks working in those facilities who are not government employees. Of course, that is easier to detect in a military hospital where active duty personnel usually wear military uniforms. However, even in VA hospitals where most everyone is a civilian, there are a large number of health care providers who are not government employees. Why is this important? Because if you are injured as a result of the negligence of an independent contractor, the United States is not responsible for any damages you may incur. In such a case you must sue the independent contractor and/or his employer to obtain compensation. This will usually complicate things significantly. Let me give you an example. Our firm recently represented the family of an active duty sailor whose wife received her care at a Navy primary care clinic in California. That clinic was operated by the Navy but staffed by civilian doctors and nurses provided by by a private company. Over the course of two years the patient was seen by numerous doctors and nurses for various primary care needs. No one, however, ever obtained a family history from the patient which would have notified them that the patient, who was 42, was at high risk for colon cancer because her father had died of the disease when he was 48. In fact, the patient on several occasions requested a colonoscopy because of her high risk, but her requests were always ignored. Her husband was eventually reassigned to Arizona where she presented to an Air Force hospital with abdominal problems. Tests demonstrated that the patient was suffering from Stage IV colon cancer. Despite treatment, the patient died about one year after being diagnosed.
Our firm filed a claim against the Navy under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Upon receipt of the medical records we determined that civilian doctors had treated this lady at the Navy clinic. We therefore filed a law suit against the doctors and the civilian company that employed them. When the six month FTCA administrative claims period had run, we joined the United States to our suit. This was all very tricky since California law provides a one year statute of limitation to bring a medical malpractice suit while the FTCA allows two years. Had we missed the California statute of limitations, the sailor and his family would have been barred from suing the civilian doctors.
As things turned out, the Navy blamed the civilians for not properly treating this patient and the civilians blamed the Navy. Both of them, of course, blamed the patient who was dead. After over a year of discovery, both the United States and the civilian company settled with the family.
This case demonstrates how important it is to pursue a claim in a timely manner and to secure the services of a firm which has the experience and resources to take on both the government and a large corporation simultaneously.
