Trinitas Hospital. (Photo: Carmen Natale/ALM)

A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that a group of doctors and nurses had sufficient notice of a medical malpractice lawsuit against them even though they were named in an attached document and not the initial complaint.

A subsequent, amended complaint in the case included the names of the individual defendants but it was filed days after the two-year statute of limitations ran out. Superior Court Judge Mark Ciarrocca dismissed registered nurses Nicole Drago and Maurice Prior, and physicians Clarke Goodman and Jeffrey Goldman from the case, accepting their contention that they were not named as defendants in the initial, timely complaint.

But the appeals court said a plaintiff, rather than listing all defendants named in the complaint, may adopt by reference a list attached to the complaint.

Reading the complaint "indulgently" in order "to ascertain whether the fundament of a cause of action may be gleaned," and applying "liberality," Appellate Division Judges Carmen Messano, Mitchel Ostrer and Francis Vernoia said the doctors and nurses were properly named as defendants.

The plaintiff, Emmanuel Lewis, claimed in the suit that his father, Milton Lewis, died after personnel at Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth failed to determine he suffered a stroke and failed to administer appropriate treatment.

The elder Lewis was admitted to the hospital on October 2016 and died there six days later.

On Oct. 9, 2018, Emmanuel Lewis filed a pro se complaint using a form from the state Judiciary's website. In the space for listing defendants, he typed in "Trinitas Regional Medical Center" and also wrote in longhand "please see attachments."

Lewis attached a letter from Union County Surrogate James LaCorte, granting him administration ad prosequendum for the purpose of bringing a claim on behalf of his late father against Trinitas, physicians Goodman and Goldman, and four registered nurses, including Drago and Prior.

Goodman, Goldman, Drago and Prior moved to dismiss on statute of limitation grounds. The other nurse defendants did not join in the motion and were not parties to the appeal.

The appeals court took judicial notice that the civil complaint form Lewis found on the judiciary website's "self-help center" includes only two lines for the defendants' names. Court rules require that a complaint include the names and addresses of all parties, but the rules also permit a party to adopt by reference an attachment to a pleading, the appeals court said.

Teaneck lawyer Tayo Bland began representing Lewis and the estate in April. He did not return a call about the ruling. Defense lawyers in the case—Maxwell Billek of Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, representing Goodman; Kenneth Brown of Weber Gallagher, representing Goldman; and Michael Ricciardulli of Ruprecht Hart Ricciardulli & Sherman, representing Drago and Prior—did not respond to requests for comment.