Goff, J.
The Medical Malpractice Act (MMA or Act) generally requires a medical-review panel to first issue an opinion on a claimant’s proposed complaint before litigation in a trial court. But while the complaint is pending before the review panel, a claimant may file an action in court for a preliminary determination of certain limited threshold issues. The question here is whether class certification by the trial court is a proper preliminary determination under the MMA. We hold that it is. We also hold, as an initial matter, that the MMA covers all claims for medical “malpractice” (as that term is defined) and is not limited to claims involving only bodily injury or death.
We thus affirm in part and reverse in part and remand for the trial court to consider the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification.
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In resolving this case, our opinion proceeds in two parts: First, we address the scope of the MMA to determine whether it encompasses the Patients’ claims. Concluding that it does, we then hold that the trial court had jurisdictional discretion to preliminarily determine class certification.
I. The MMA applies to the Patients’ emotional-distress claim.
On appeal and in their initial briefings on transfer, the parties disputed the MMA’s application based principally on whether the subject matter of this case—the failure to sterilize surgical instruments—is capable of resolution without reference to the relevant standard of care. Appellants’ Br. at 26–39; Appellees’ (Hosp.) Br. at 26–32. But at oral argument, we questioned the MMA’s applicability based on the type of injury the Patients sustained. The Act generally allows “a patient or the representative of a patient who has a claim under [the Act] for bodily injury or death on account of malpractice” to file “a complaint in any court of law having requisite jurisdiction” and to “exercise the right to a trial by jury.” Ind. Code § 34-18-8-1 (the Complaint Statute or just Statute) (emphasis added). Given the apparent absence of a “bodily injury” here, we asked the parties to file supplemental briefing on the issue.
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With this interpretive framework in mind, we conclude that the MMA covers all claims for “malpractice” by a “patient” against a “health care provider” (as those terms are defined in the Act) and that nothing in the Complaint Statute limits this scope of coverage. Our conclusion follows from the plain language of the Complaint Statute, and it aligns with decades of precedent, the Act’s legislative history, and its overarching purpose. What’s more, our reading of the Statute ensures compliance with the MMA’s statute of limitations by patients, like those here, that may suffer from a latent bodily injury following an act of malpractice.
A. The MMA applies to all claims for “malpractice” by a “patient” against a “health care provider,” and nothing in the Statute’s text limits this scope of coverage.
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1. Our understanding of the MMA’s scope aligns with decades of precedent, the Act’s legislative history, and its overarching purpose.
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2. The MMA must cover potential bodily injury, not just contemporaneous bodily injury, for the Patients to meet the statute of limitations.
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B. The Patients’ emotional-distress claim sufficiently alleges a “bodily injury.”
Even if we were to read the Statute as restricting malpractice complaints to those alleging “bodily injury or death,” we find the Patients’ emotional-distress claim sufficiently alleges such a “bodily injury.” Under the modified-impact rule, a plaintiff may recover damages for emotional distress when he or she “sustains a direct impact by the negligence of another and” because “of that direct involvement sustains an emotional trauma” serious enough to affect a “reasonable person.” Shuamber, 579 N.E.2d at 456. Of course, the “direct physical impact” necessary to support an emotional-distress claim “need not cause a physical injury to the plaintiff and the emotional trauma suffered by the plaintiff need not result from a physical injury caused by the impact.” Conder v. Wood, 716 N.E.2d 432, 434 (Ind. 1999). The Patients are correct, then, in their observation that a physical impact “is not inherently the same as ‘bodily injury.’” See Appellants’ Supp. Resp. Br. at 20.
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Based on this precedent, we consider the Hospital’s alleged tortious conduct here—the use of unsterilized surgical instruments that potentially exposed the Patients to infectious diseases—sufficient to constitute a “bodily injury” under the impact rule governing claims for emotional distress. Indeed, for purposes of establishing such an injury, we find little distinction between a subcutaneous prick of a hypodermic needle and the insertion of a foreign object into a patient’s body during an invasive medical procedure.
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Having resolved the threshold question of the MMA’s applicability to the Patients’ claim, we now turn to the procedural issue before us— whether the trial court had jurisdiction to preliminarily determine class certification under the Act.
II. The trial court had jurisdictional discretion to preliminarily determine class certification
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This “limited authority” under the MMA permits the trial court to, among other things,12 “preliminarily determine an affirmative defense or issue of law or fact that may be preliminarily determined under the Indiana Rules of Procedure.” I.C. § 34-18-8-7(a)(3); I.C. § 34-18-11-1(a)(1). However, the MMA expressly prohibits a trial court from issuing a preliminary determination on “any affirmative defense or issue of law or fact reserved for written opinion by the medical review panel.” I.C. § 34- 18-11-1(b). These reserved issues of law or fact include opinions on whether the evidence supports the “conclusion that the defendant or defendants failed to comply with the appropriate standard of care” and whether the “conduct complained of was or was not a factor of the resultant damages.” I.C. §§ 34-18-10-22(b)(1), (2), (4).
The question here is whether class certification amounts to an improper preliminary determination by the trial court. For the reasons below, we conclude that it is not.
A. The Griffith Court took an overly narrow approach to preliminary-determination jurisdiction.
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In sum, the plain language of the MMA allows for a preliminary determination of “an affirmative defense or issue of law or fact that may be preliminarily determined under the Indiana Rules of Procedure,” including Rules other than Trial Rule 12(D). I.C. § 34-18-11-1(a)(1). The Act only prohibits a trial court from issuing a preliminary determination on an “affirmative defense or issue of law or fact” reserved for the panel’s expert opinion—i.e., whether the defendant “failed to comply with the appropriate standard of care” and whether the conduct factored into the “resultant damages.” I.C. §§ 34-18-10-22(b)(1), (2), (4); I.C. § 34-18-11-1(b). In other words, “an issue that does not require expert opinion is not reserved to the medical review panel” and may be subject to preliminary determination by the trial court. Miller v. Martig, 754 N.E.2d 41, 44–45 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001). Of course, such a determination may affect, to one extent or another, “the manner in which the panel arrives at its opinion” or perhaps even the “matters that the panel may consider in arriving at its opinion.” [Footnote omitted.] See Griffith, 602 N.E.2d at 110. But we consider that permissible so long as it “will enhance, not deter, the objectives” of the MMA. See Hiland, 516 N.E.2d at 52.
With this standard in mind, we proceed to address the Hospital’s remaining claims.
B. A class-certification determination does not dictate the substance of a review panel’s opinion.
The Hospital contends that, because a class-certification determination requires a trial court to make findings of fact and to “evaluate and compare the underlying claims of the putative class members,” such a determination, which implicates the “merits of the claims,” exceeds the trial court’s statutory authority….
We disagree.
As noted above, the MMA specifically states that the trial “court has no jurisdiction to rule preliminarily upon any affirmative defense or issue of law or fact reserved for written opinion by the medical review panel.” I.C. § 34-18-11-1(b) (emphasis added). Those reserved issues, to reiterate, involve the review panel’s “conclusion that the defendant or defendants failed to comply with the appropriate standard of care” and whether the “conduct complained of was or was not a factor of the resultant damages.” I.C. §§ 34-18-10-22(b)(1), (2), (4).
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C. Though it may affect the manner in which the panel arrives at its opinion, class certification aligns with the MMA’s overall purpose.
Beyond affecting the substance of a review panel’s opinion, class certification, the Hospital contends, would improperly dictate the procedure in which the panel arrives at its opinion and the evidence it may consider…
Again, we disagree.
First, we acknowledge that a class-action proceeding “circumvents the need” for all potential claimants to “file individual claims” with a medical-review panel…
Second, the MMA not only contemplates “multiple plaintiffs” before a medical-review panel, I.C. § 34-18-10-7, it also permits a “representative of a patient,” rather than the patient herself, to file a malpractice claim with the panel, I.C. § 34-18-8-1…
Third, allowing the named plaintiffs alone to present their claims need not limit the evidence considered by the review panel…
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this Court’s acceptance of the Hospital’s argument would effectively eliminate class actions from all medical-malpractice claims…
D. A healthcare provider must warn of a subsequently discovered medical error with potentially harmful consequences.
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We generally agree with the IHA that preemptive class certification could “potentially chill” disclosure of patient information, at least when “the occurrence of an adverse event is uncertain, may not be obvious or severe, or where potential harm may only be evident.” See Amicus IHA Br. at 12. But the Hospital here didn’t just commit a “potential medical error” or a “near miss.” Rather, it committed a clear medical error with potentially harmful or even fatal consequences. Indeed, in the letter it sent to all potentially affected patients, the Hospital explained that, over the course of several months, one of its technicians “did not” complete the full sterilization process of surgical instruments.16 App. Vol. 2, p. 131 (emphasis added). And this failure to sterilize, the Hospital admitted, “may have exposed” the patients to certain viruses, including the Hepatitis C virus, the Hepatitis B virus, and HIV. Id.
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Simply put, in instances where, like here, a clear medical error has the potential for harm, the provider may not “hesitate to share” information with the patient. See Amicus IHA Br. at 12.
Conclusion
For the reasons above, we hold (1) that the MMA applies to the Patients’ claims and (2) that the trial court had jurisdiction to preliminarily determine class certification. We thus affirm in part and reverse in part and “remand for the trial court to consider what, if any, barriers to certification remain.” See Budden, 698 N.E.2d at 1166.
Rush, C.J., concurs.
Massa, J., concurs in the judgment.
Slaughter, J., concurs in the judgment in part and dissents in part with separate opinion in which Molter, J., joins.
Slaughter, J., concurring in judgment in part, dissenting in part.
The Court holds that the medical malpractice act applies to claims for emotional distress. Unlike the Court, I would hold that the act does not apply because the plaintiffs are not alleging “bodily injury or death”. I ground my conclusion in the act’s plain meaning, which prevails over rival considerations like legislative history and statutory purpose. Any supposedly contrary Indiana precedent has not decided this issue of first impression. And our common-law impact rule does not mean the plaintiffs’ claims allege “bodily injury” under the act. Because I conclude the act does not apply, I agree that the trial court had jurisdiction to decide the class-worthiness of the plaintiff’s claims under Trial Rule 23. Thus, I concur in the Court’s judgment in part and write separately to explain why I respectfully dissent from its holding that the act applies here.
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Perhaps the Court is ultimately right about legislative purpose. Maybe the legislature really did want the act to apply to “all” patient claims for medical malpractice, and not just those for “bodily injury or death”. But courts interpreting and applying the act are right to demand that the legislature say what it means and make its purpose (whatever it is) unmistakably clear. Until or unless the legislature amends the complaint statute to excise any reference to “bodily injury or death”, I would continue to interpret the statute as written and in line with our Court’s statements in Lake Imaging and Patrick.
For these reasons, I concur in the Court’s judgment in part and dissent in part.
Molter, J., joins.