Bledsoe v. Crowley

Brian Crowley and Sylvia Friedman (defendants) were Maryland-based doctors who treated Dr. Theodore Bledsoe (plaintiff) for numerous years for psychiatric disorders. Bledsoe lived in Maryland when he began treatment, and Bledsoe’s medical practice was in Maryland. However, Bledsoe moved to the District of Columbia (D.C.) at some point and lived in D.C. when he sued Crowley and Friedman in federal court in D.C. for medical malpractice for failing to diagnose him with a brain tumor. Per Bledsoe, his untreated brain tumor caused him permanent damage, which prevented Bledsoe from continuing to practice medicine. Under Maryland law, medical-malpractice claims generally had to be submitted to an arbitration panel before litigation could be commenced. The arbitration panel’s decision would not be dispositive but would be admissible evidence in any subsequent suit. D.C. did not have a comparable arbitration requirement. Crowley and Friedman moved to dismiss Bledsoe’s complaint on the ground that Maryland law applied and that Bledsoe did not comply with Maryland’s presuit arbitration requirement. The district court ruled that Maryland law applied and dismissed Bledsoe’s complaint. Per the district court, Maryland had evinced a strong public policy regarding the conduct of medical-malpractice claims by requiring presuit arbitration; by contrast, D.C.’s failure to legislate regarding presuit arbitration showed that D.C. had no relevant policy interest. Thus, the district court concluded, there was no true conflict of law, and Maryland law applied. Bledsoe appealed, arguing that the lack of relevant D.C. legislation could mean that D.C. wished to afford D.C. citizens full tort remedies, not that D.C. had no interest in whether presuit arbitration should be required in medical-malpractice cases. Bledsoe also cited the Maryland statute’s provision that a medical-malpractice suit “may not be brought or pursued in any court of this State except in accordance with” the statute, which Bledsoe asserted meant that the Maryland statute applied only to suits brought in Maryland’s courts.