MOUNT VERNON – St. Clair County Circuit Judge Heinz Rudolf lacks jurisdiction over a Marion County couple’s suit about medical care in Marion County, according to Fifth District appellate judges.
Justices John Barberis and Randy Moore directed him to transfer it to the courthouse in Salem in a binding opinion on Aug. 25.
They found that the suit had no practical connection to St. Clair County and that Marion County residents had a strong interest in it.
Dissenting Justice Thomas Welch wrote that Barberis and Moore effectively lowered the Fifth District’s standard of review.
Jamie Brandt and Darin Brandt filed the suit in 2017, against Mid-America Radiology of Mount Vernon.
They claimed Jamie presented for annual mammograms at St. Mary’s Hospital in Centralia from 2012 to 2015.
They claimed Mid-America radiologists Timothy Carmody and Prashanth Shekar studied the mammograms but failed to diagnose cancer.
They named Carmody and Shekar as defendants.
Carmody resided in Iowa and stayed in a Mount Vernon apartment.
Shekar resided in St. Clair County.
He preferred not to defend himself there, and he moved for transfer to Marion County as a more convenient forum.
Mid-America and Carmody joined the motion, and the defendants jointly filed a memorandum on jurisdiction in 2018.
Rudolf held a hearing last year and denied the motion.
He found it difficult to believe that St. Clair County, where Shekar slept, voted, and paid taxes, was inconvenient for him.
He found St. Clair County jurors had as much right to jury duty if not more, when a defendant was a county resident.
He found none of the parties resided in Marion County and witnesses were scattered throughout different counties.
He found St. Clair County more convenient for experts from other states who would travel through Lambert Airport.
On appeal, Barberis and Moore found Rudolf placed undue weight on Shekar’s place of residence.
Barberis wrote that Rudolf “improperly focused on this fact and failed to properly consider the convenience of all other parties.”
He wrote that Mid-America specifically asserted that trial in Marion County would be less burdensome in terms of securing practice coverage.
He wrote that contrary to Rudolf’s determination that witnesses were scattered, “the record clearly demonstrates that Jamie’s treatment providers were located in Marion County and St. Louis.”
He wrote that the Brandts didn’t identify any experts who would travel through Lambert Airport.
"Moreover, the court was not free to speculate about the possible inconvenience of an unnamed group of witnesses who would be traveling from unknown locations to provide unspecified testimony,” Barberis wrote.
Dissenter Welch wrote that the facts didn’t present an exceptional circumstance warranting transfer.
He wrote that the pleadings were filed in a forum in which a defendant resided.
He wrote that the majority recognized that Rudolf thoroughly analyzed the factors.
"However, because it disagrees with the lower court’s reasonable conclusion, they effectively lower our standard of review in order to reverse,” Welch wrote.
Attorneys Thomas Smith, Michael Donelson, and Margaret Gentzen, all of Fox Smith in St. Louis, represent Mid-America, Shekar, and Carmody.
Attorneys Colleen Jones and Leah Captain, both of Bruce Cook’s firm in Belleville, represent the Brandts.