IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA No. 147PA18 Filed 5 June 2020 CHRISTOPHER CHAMBERS, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated v. THE MOSES H. CONE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL; THE MOSES H. CONE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OPERATING CORPORATION d/b/a MOSES CONE HEALTH SYSTEM and d/b/a CONE HEALTH; and DOES 1 through 25, inclusive On discretionary review pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-31 of a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, 259 N.C. App. 8, 814 S.E.2d 864 (2018), affirming an order entered on 16 March 2017 by Judge James L. Gale, Chief Business Court Judge, in Superior Court, Guilford County. Heard in the Supreme Court on 18 November 2019 in session in the Old Guilford County Courthouse in the City of Greensboro, pursuant to section 18B.8 of Chapter 57 of the 2017 North Carolina Session Laws. Higgins Benjamin, PLLC, by John F. Bloss, for plaintiff-appellant. Womble Bond Dickinson, LLP, by Philip J. Mohr and Brent F. Powell, for defendant-appellees The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital and The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital Operating Corporation. Patterson Harkavy LLP, by Burton Craige; and Carol L. Brooke, Jack Holtzman, and Clermont F. Ripley for North Carolina Justice Center, Center for Responsible Lending, and North Carolina Advocates for Justice, amicus curiae. Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Ryan Y. Park, Deputy Solicitor General, Daniel T. Wilkes, Assistant Attorney General, and Matthew C. Burke, Solicitor General Fellow, for the State of North Carolina, amicus curiae. Linwood Jones for North Carolina Healthcare Association, amicus curiae. CHAMBERS V. MOSES H. CONE MEM’L HOSP. Opinion of the Court EARLS, Justice. Christopher Chambers and his wife were sued in May 2012 by The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital Operating Corporation seeking collection of $14,358.14 plus interest, allegedly owed for emergency room services. Around the same time, Christopher Chambers filed a class action complaint against The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital and The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital Operating Corporation (Moses Cone) seeking a declaratory judgment that the contract he signed as an uninsured patient needing emergency medical treatment entitled Moses Cone to recover no more than the reasonable value of the services it provided. We must now decide whether Moses Cone’s subsequent, unilateral action dismissing its claims against Chambers and his wife and ceasing all other attempts to collect the debt, prior to certification of the class in Chambers’s declaratory judgment action, renders the entire class action moot. Following the logic of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Richardson v. Bledsoe, 829 F.3d 273 (3d Cir. 2016), we hold that the relation back doctrine “may be applied to relate a now-moot individual claim back to the date of the class action complaint” when the event that moots the plaintiff’s claim occurs before the plaintiff has had a fair opportunity to seek class certification and provided that the plaintiff has not unduly delayed in litigating the motion for class certification. Id. at 285. Therefore, “when ‘satisfaction of the plaintiff’s individual -2- CHAMBERS V. MOSES H. CONE MEM’L ...
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