Arbitration & Mediation

Plastic Surgery Arbitration - Motion to Disinter Body Appealed

By Christopher B. Hopkins, Esq.

Most civil practitioners make it through their entire careers without filing a Motion to Disinter a Body (don't bother flipping through the Rules of Civil Procedure, it's not there). In a well publicized plastic surgery death case, the First District interesting took an appeal from binding arbitration under the medical negligence statute to ascertain whether it was necessary discovery.

The case is Shari Beth Gottleib as Personal Rep. of the Estate of Martin J. Gottlieb v. Mohamad R. Samiian, Aesthetic & Plastic Surgery Center of Jacksonville et al. (Kahn, Benton, Barfield).

What is notable about the case is that this is an appeal of a discovery motion in arbitration. Specifically, it is a fairly unusual motion (digging up a dead body to test it for illicit drugs) and the arbitration is the statutorily-mandated process under the medical negligence statute, F.S. 766.207.

The Panel spent little time dealing with the origin of the case; it apparently was not significant to them that the motion was pending in arbitration (as opposed to circuit court). There was noticeably no discussion as to the court's basis for jurisdiction to review a certiorari petition out of arbitration. Thus, one might conclude that cert review is available and appropriate for discovery motions (if not other matters) in arbitration.

As to the merits, the court concluded that there are common-law driven grounds to support a motion to disinter but, in this case, there was insufficient basis since the motion was premised upon an anonymous and vague second-hand source.

If you are interested, oral argument is here (under May 2007).

Full post as published by Florida Arbitration Law on December 05, 2008 (boomark / email).