The plaintiffs, Thomas Mark Anderson and his wife Cynthia S. Anderson appealed from a summary judgment in favor of the defendant image of Alabama Reference Laboratories ("ARL"). Thomas sought medical help from his physician Dr. Keith Fuller for symptoms including coughing up yellow-greenish sputum. Dr. Fuller diagnosed pneumonia and treated Anderson with antibiotics.
Anderson returned twice more within a week with worsening symptoms. A sputum specimen was sent to ARL for testing which initially came back normal but was later reported as presumptively positive for tuberculosis. This led to Dr. Fuller diagnosing him with tuberculosis. As a result, Anderson suffered several side effects from the prescribed tuberculosis medication.
Additional testing performed subsequently revealed that Anderson's initial sputum specimen had been contaminated, resulting in a false positive for tuberculosis. Anderson and his wife sued ARL in the Russell Circuit Court claiming negligent tuberculosis testing. ARL successfully moved to dismiss the fraud claims and the court granted ARL's motion for a summary judgement, ruling that the case was subject to the Alabama Medical Liability Act of 1987.