Veteran who contracted Legionnaire's disease waited too long to sue the VA, U.S. court rules
Patriot-NewsJul 13, 2018
That decision by a panel of the
That hospital was indeed the nexus of a Legionnaire's outbreak in 2011 and 2012 that killed six veterans and sickened another 16 who survived.
Rettig, 58, of
According to the circuit court opinion by Judge
Hospital officials told him he had likely contracted the disease during a recent trip to
Even though the 2011-12 Legionnaire's outbreak at the hospital was well and widely publicized, especially by the
That delay was two years longer than the law allows, Fuentes found. He noted that federal law requires a person to file such a case within two years of recognizing they might have been wronged.
Media coverage of the outbreak, plus urgings from Rettig's own family members, should have prompted Rettig to file his complaint long before he did, Fuentes concluded. He found that, under the circumstances, Rettig's deadline for filing suit expired in
"There is no dispute that in 2011 and 2012 Rettig was aware of the news stories covering the outbreak of Legionnaire's disease at the hospital," Fuentes wrote. "A reasonable person in Rettig's shoes would have been put on notice that he should investigate whether his illness also originated at the hospital."
He also rejected Rettig's claim of a cover-up. "The record does not indicate that anyone at the hospital was aware of the outbreak at the time of Rettig's initial diagnosis," the judge concluded.
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