PAPKEN HARTUNIAN v. MERCY MEDICAL CENTER (2022)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

In 2015, plaintiff Papken Hartunian brought a medical malpractice case against defendant Mercy Medical Center (MMC), among others. A judgment of dismissal entered in favor of MMC, and Hartunian failed to perfect his appeal from that judgment.² In 2021, Hartunian brought this declaratory judgment action, asserting that it was a “collateral attack on the judgment” in favor of MMC. Hartunian's declaratory judgment action was dismissed, and he appeals from that judgment of dismissal.³ We affirm.

As alleged in Hartunian's complaint, he filed his medical malpractice complaint in 2015. On May 10, 2016, he filed an amended complaint. On May 27, 2016, MMC filed an application for a final judgment of dismissal pursuant to Mass. R. Civ. P. 33 (a) (4), as appearing in 436 Mass. 1401 (2002). That same day, the requested judgment of dismissal entered in favor of MMC. Hartunian's declaratory judgment action, and arguments on appeal, are premised on the idea that the judgment in favor of MMC in the medical malpractice case should not have entered where there was a pending amended complaint that superseded the original complaint, and where MMC never answered the amended complaint.

Hartunian's declaratory judgment action is, as he concedes, a collateral attack on the prior judgment in favor of MMC. “[A] judgment may be collaterally attacked only 'if other means of obtaining relief from the judgment [were] unavailable ․ or the convenient administration of justice would be served by determining the question of relief in the course of the subsequent action.'” Director of Div. of Employment Sec. v. Mattapoisett, 392 Mass. 858, 860 (1984), quoting Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 80 (1982). Hartunian had ample opportunity to obtain relief from the prior judgment in favor of MMC. He filed a notice of appeal from that judgment but then failed to perfect his appeal. He also filed numerous postjudgment motions in the medical malpractice case, at least one of which argued that his amended complaint superseded his original complaint. As Hartunian's medical malpractice case has been fully resolved, the administration of justice would not be served by revisiting the case collaterally through a declaratory judgment action. See, e.g., Tompkins v. Tompkins, 65 Mass. App. Ct. 487, 493 (2006).⁴

Judgment affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

2.   Hartunian's claims against the remaining defendants in the medical malpractice case were dismissed on summary judgment, and that separate judgment was affirmed in an unpublished memorandum and order of this court. See Hartunian v. Mercy Med. Ctr., 99 Mass. App. Ct. 1104 (2020).

3.   The defendants argue that Hartunian's notice of appeal was a nullity on the basis that it was filed while a motion to amend the judgment, served within ten days of entry of the November 17, 2021 judgment, was pending. See Mass. R. A. P. 4 (a) (2), as appearing in 481 Mass. 1606 (2022). After the motion to amend was filed, however, it was withdrawn on December 1, 2021, and a corrected motion to amend was filed that same day. The defendants argue that the corrected version relates back to the original version. We need not decide this issue -- and instead decide the appeal -- where Hartunian filed his notice of appeal on December 14, 2021, and the judge concluded that no action was needed on the corrected motion to amend on January 4, 2022. See Roch v. Mollica, 481 Mass. 164, 165 n.2 (2019).

4.   MMC's request for appellate attorney's fees is denied. Hartunian's motions to strike and to file a supplemental brief are also denied.