United States Ninth Circuit

In a suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) brought by a minor plaintiff, alleging that his mother died of postpartum hemorrhage due to medical malpractice by a physician, who was a deemed employee of the U.S. Public Health Service, the district court's dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on exhaustion grounds is reversed because plaintiff's initial failure to exhaust his administrative remedies as to a defendant whom the plaintiffs reasonably did not know was covered by the FTCA did not deprive the federal courts of subject-matter jurisdiction over that plaintiff's FTCA claim where the plaintiff dismissed his initial suit against that defendant, and then exhausted his administrative remedies before amending his complaint in state court to add the defendant again.

Appellate Information

• Published 2017/06/05

Judges

• LASNIK

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel