Justices Reject State Affidavit Rule in Federal Malpractice Case

Delaware medical malpractice plaintiffs filing suits in federal court don’t have to comply with a state affidavit of merit law, the US Supreme Court said Tuesday.

The state law requiring plaintiffs to file an expert witness’s written statement that the claims are reasonable along with their complaint conflicted with Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires complaints to contain only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing” that the plaintiff is entitled to relief,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said for the high court.

Whether a state’s heightened pleading requirements apply in federal courts is a question dating back decades to when states began adopting these types of “tort reform” measures to weed out frivolous cases. Most medical malpractice cases are filed in state courts, but federal courts have jurisdiction in some circumstances, such as when the parties are citizens of different states.

The high court was asked to clear up a circuit court split that had developed in medical malpractice diversity cases over time.

Federal courts presiding over state-law claims are generally required to apply state substantive law unless the US Constitution, a treaty, or a federal law requires otherwise, Barrett said. But, under the Rules Enabling Act, an on-point valid federal procedural rule displaces a contrary state law, even if the state law qualified as “substantive.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 answered the question of whether the plaintiff’s lawsuit had to be dismissed here, the justices said. “By requiring no more than a statement of the claim,” Rule 8 implicitly and clearly established that other evidence isn’t required, they said. Rule 12 reinforces that point by forbidding courts from considering matters not contained in the pleadings.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred in the result, but said she found the Delaware affidavit-of-merit law conflicts with Rules 3. Under that rule, civil actions are commenced in federal courts “as soon as the complaint—and only the complaint—has been filed by the plaintiff,” she said.

The case arose when Harold Berk, a Florida resident who spends time in Delaware, sued his health-care providers in a federal court there, alleging they negligently treated his ankle injury. But he wasn’t able to acquire an affidavit of merit, and the federal judge dismissed his complaint for failure to comply with Delaware’s law that mandates filing an expert’s affidavit of merit along with a complaint, and that the failure to do so warrants automatic dismissal. The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed.

The top court’s reversal was unanimous, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh joining the opinion.

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer represented Berk. Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP, Covington & Burling LLP, Bradley Arant Rose & White, Elzufon Austin & Mondell PA, and Marshall Dennehey PC represented the providers.

The case is Berk v. Choy, U.S., No. 24-440, 1/20/26.