Berk v. Choy

Delaware law requiring a plaintiff suing for medical malpractice to provide an affidavit from a medical professional attesting to the suit’s merit, Del. Code, Tit. 18, §6853(a)(1), conflicts with a valid Federal Rule of Civil Procedure and does not apply in federal court sitting in diversity. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the 8–1 majority opinion of the Court. Delaware Code §6853(a)(1)—which requires plaintiffs to include an expert affidavit with a medical malpractice complaint—answers the same procedural question as Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8: what information a plaintiff must provide about the merits of a claim in order to proceed with a lawsuit. Rule 8 requires only a “short and plain” statement showing entitlement to relief, not evidentiary support like an affidavit. Because Rule 8 implicitly but clearly excludes a requirement for supporting evidence at the pleading stage, Delaware’s law directly conflicts with the federal rule. The Court rejected efforts to recast the state law as imposing a more flexible, post-pleading evidentiary requirement, noting that this effort could not be enforced under the Federal Rules, which specify mechanisms like Rule 56 (summary judgment) for requiring evidentiary support and prohibit consideration of evidence outside the pleadings when deciding motions under Rule 12(b)(6). Under the Rules Enabling Act, federal procedural rules supersede conflicting state laws so long as the federal rule is valid. Rule 8 is valid because it governs procedures, not substantive rights—it regulates only how claims are presented at the outset of litigation. The substantive nature or purpose of the displaced state law has no bearing on this inquiry. Since Rule 8 regulates procedure and directly addresses the same issue as §6853, it preempts Delaware’s affidavit requirement in federal court. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored an opinion concurring in the judgment, arguing that the conflict lies with Federal Rules 3 (governing commencement of an action) and 12 (limiting judges to the face of the pleading at the motion to dismiss stage) rather than Rule 8. She criticized the majority’s reasoning for implying that Rule 8 speaks to documents outside the pleadings, such as third-party affidavits.