Day on Torts
An HCLA pre-suit notice that was sent to two former employees of a rehabilitation center, rather than to the appropriate address or agent for the rehabilitation center, was not sufficient under the statute.
In Anderson v. Alexian Village of Tennessee, No. E2024-00977-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 31, 2025), the plaintiff filed a health care liability suit against the defendant rehabilitation center. Before filing suit, the plaintiff sent two copies of pre-suit notice—one addressed to the CEO of the center and one addressed to the president of the center. Neither of these individuals were named as defendants.
The defendant moved to dismiss the case based on the plaintiff’s failure to comply with the pre-suit notice requirements of the HCLA. The defendant asserted that the pre-suit notice had only been sent to two former employees, neither of whom had worked for the defendant for at least five years. The trial court agreed that the pre-suit notice was deficient and dismissed the case. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-121 requires an HCLA plaintiff to give pre-suit notice to “each health care provider that will be a named defendant.” Here, it was undisputed that the two notices sent were addressed to individuals, and the letters therein stated that the plaintiff was “asserting a potential claim for medical negligence against you.” The letters did not mention a claim against the rehabilitation center.
After reviewing Tennessee case law, the Court explained:
[I]t is undisputed that Ms. Anderson sent a pre-suit notice letter addressed to two former employees of Alexian at Alexian’s address. Although she did list their previous titles as part of the recipient’s address portion of the letter, she included nothing in the body of the letter identifying Alexian as the potential defendant or otherwise indicating that her claim was actually against Alexian rather than the individuals. In fact, she stated in the letter that she was “asserting a potential claim for medical negligence against you” (emphasis added), thus indicating that her claim was against Mr. Hambley and Mr. Ott. As such, we conclude that Ms. Anderson failed to provide pre-suit notice to Alexian as required by Tennessee Code Annotated Section 29-26-121(a)(1). We reiterate the Supreme Court’s directive in Runions: “Strict compliance with the pre-suit notice provision is required; substantial compliance is insufficient.” Accordingly, Ms. Anderson’s arguments that she substantially complied by sending the notice to Alexian’s business address or by listing the former employees’ titles are unavailing.
(internal citations omitted).
The plaintiff also argued that the defendant waived its argument that notice was deficient by “complying with requests for documents sent after transmittal of the pre-suit notice[.]” The Court rejected this argument, stating that it could not “rewrite the plain language of the statute to create an exception to the mandatory pre-suit notice provision simply because [the defendant] subsequently provided documents.”
Dismissal of the case was affirmed, reminding HCLA plaintiffs of the critical importance of sending pre-suit notice to the proper parties.
This opinion was released one month after oral arguments.