Certificate of Merit Laws Under Fire

In last month's newsletter we began a discussion of the holding in the recent case of Putman v. Wenatchee Valley Medical Center, 166 Wash.2d 974 (2009), in which the Supreme Court of Washington struck down that state's law requiring the filing of a certificate of merit in medical malpractice lawsuits. The court's first basis for deciding that the legislation was unlawful was the federal and state principles that all citizens should have open access to the courts and to the protections of the law provided therein. As Washington's certificate of merit requirement often prevented plaintiffs from obtaining discovery, their access to the courts was impinged upon by that requirement, the court found.