Q: What are requirements for a malpractice suite?

A: Depends on the type of case. In North Carolina, there are VERY STRICT filing requirements and deadlines for claims of Medical Negligence.

Introduction to Rule 9(j). In 1995, the North Carolina General Assembly created Rule 9(j) of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure to require medical malpractice complaints to include an assertion that the “medical care” was reviewed by a qualified professional willing to testify that the acts or omissions fell below the standard of care.

Closely tied to this requirement, North Carolina Rule of Evidence 702 was also amended to include various qualifications for experts testifying in North Carolina courts.

The prefiling certification requirement of Rule 9(j) was designed to prevent frivolous medical malpractice litigation. Since its effective date of October 1, 1996, however, it has been the source of over 100 published and unpublished opinions attempting to interpret its undefined provisions, reconcile it with other civil procedure rules, and address other questions of applicability.

Bill Powers

A: First that there was harm caused by someone violating the "standard of care" for doctors of that type of medicine--specialists are held to a higher standard than generalists; big hospitals held to a higher standard than rural hospitals. This means if you gathered many doctors in a room and said "here's how the patient was, here are their tests, x rays, history, what would you do, " if 90% say do x and the doctor does y then the doctor had better have the greatest reason for not doing x IF HARM RESULTS. I say that because I get a lot of questions from people where maybe there was a violation of the standard of care, but fortunately someone else caught it before real harm could happen. In that case, no case.