Earlier this month the North Carolina Supreme Court issued its opinion in Vaughan v. Mashburn, an important case interpreting Rule 9(j), the special pleadings rule for medical malpractice actions.

Rule 9(j) of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure requires plaintiffs filing medical malpractice complaints to include a specific allegation that the medical care and medical records have been reviewed by an expert who meets certain qualifications and who is willing to testify that there was a breach of the standard of care.  If a plaintiff fails to include the Rule 9(j) language, the complaint “shall be dismissed.”  This special pleading requirement does not apply to other types of malpractice or to ordinary negligence actions. The original aim of the rule was to reduce frivolous med mal litigation; but, as I have noted in the past, in its short life it has generated well over 100 published appellate opinions as courts have grappled with its undefined provisions, reconciled it with other procedural rules, and tried to determine when it does and does not apply.