Montana Family Denied Bid to Revive Untimely Health-Care Suit

Montana’s six-month service-of-process time limit didn’t give a deceased patient’s family extra time to file a new medical malpractice complaint more than two years after the deadline for filing the original claim expired, the state’s top court said.

The two-year medical malpractice statute of limitations wasn’t suspended during the statutory service period, meaning that an amended complaint filed after it ran out had to be dismissed, the Montana Supreme Court said Tuesday. The original complaint was timely filed, but it had been dismissed for failure to make timely service, the court said.

There was nothing in Montana’s medical malpractice act—or ...