Verdicts

No Duty of Care

A trial court properly dismissed a negligence claim against a doctor and his employer because they owed no duty of care to the plaintiff, who was injured by a patient whom the doctor had failed to warn of the dangers her condition posed. Jarmi v. Troncale, 2012 Conn. LEXIS 337 (Conn. 9/17/12).

The physician defendant diagnosed the patient with several liver and kidney problems. One of these was hepatic encephalopathy, the effects of which can cause mental impairment. When the patient was leaving the physician's office one day, she blacked out while driving, injuring the plaintiff. The latter, whose injuries are permanent and severe, alleged in the suit that the physician and his employer were responsible for failing to warn the patient that she should not be driving. The defendants moved the court to strike the complaint on the grounds that it was deficient due to a lack of a physician/patient relationship between the plaintiff and the doctor, and the doctor owed no common-law duty to the plaintiff to warn the patient of her driving risks. The trial court granted the motion and found for the defendants. The plaintiff appealed, the case eventually reaching the State's high court.

Connecticut's medical malpractice law, General Statutes ' 52-190a, states in pertinent part: “(a) No civil action or apportionment complaint shall be filed to recover damages resulting from personal injury or wrongful death occurring on or after October 1, 1987, whether in tort or in contract, in which it is alleged that such injury or death resulted from the negligence of a health care provider, unless the attorney or party filing the action or apportionment complaint has made a reasonable inquiry as permitted by the circumstances to determine that there are grounds for a good faith belief that there has been negligence in the care or treatment of the claimant.” (Emphasis added.) The court observed that, “Pursuant to this statute, which was enacted as part of the Tort Reform Act of 1986; see Public Acts 1986, No. 86-338, ' 12; a cause of action alleging medical malpractice must be brought by a patient against a health care provider because the language of the statute specifically provides that the alleged negligence must have occurred 'in the care or treatment of the claimant.'” Thus, the plaintiff in this action had no standing to bring a medical malpractice action against the doctor or his employer.

With his common-law negligence claim, the plaintiff fared no better. The outcome of the case rested on precedent, both in and outside the medical realm, concerning identifiable victims. That precedent, in Connecticut, says that a person may be held liable for harm to a third party with whom he had no relationship only if that third party was readily identifiable and it was obvious that harm was likely to come to that particular person if the alleged tortfeasor did or did not act. Here, the Connecticut Supreme Court stated that even if it was foreseeable that the patient might have caused a car accident due to her condition, “the plaintiff was not an identifiable victim, nor does he belong to an identifiable class of victims, because the potential victims of [the patient's] alleged negligence included any random pedestrian, driver, vehicular passenger or other person who happened to come in close proximity to a motor vehicle operated by [the patient] following her diagnosis.”

The court was only willing to abandon this precedent in the case of healthcare providers if public policy reasons dictated that it should. However, the court concluded that quite the opposite was true: “When the accepted standard of care requires a health care provider to advise or warn a patient of the risks of driving due to the patient's underlying medical condition, imposing an additional duty on the health care provider to the victim of the patient's unsafe driving would be problematic, at best, because it would be inconsistent with the physician's duty of loyalty to the patient, would threaten the inherent confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship [by requiring production of medical records as evidence that a warning was or was not given to the patient] and would impermissibly intrude on the physician's professional judgment regarding treatment and care of the patient.”

No Duty of Care

A trial court properly dismissed a negligence claim against a doctor and his employer because they owed no duty of care to the plaintiff, who was injured by a patient whom the doctor had failed to warn of the dangers her condition posed. Jarmi v. Troncale, 2012 Conn. LEXIS 337 (Conn. 9/17/12).

The physician defendant diagnosed the patient with several liver and kidney problems. One of these was hepatic encephalopathy, the effects of which can cause mental impairment. When the patient was leaving the physician's office one day, she blacked out while driving, injuring the plaintiff. The latter, whose injuries are permanent and severe, alleged in the suit that the physician and his employer were responsible for failing to warn the patient that she should not be driving. The defendants moved the court to strike the complaint on the grounds that it was deficient due to a lack of a physician/patient relationship between the plaintiff and the doctor, and the doctor owed no common-law duty to the plaintiff to warn the patient of her driving risks. The trial court granted the motion and found for the defendants. The plaintiff appealed, the case eventually reaching the State's high court.

Connecticut's medical malpractice law, General Statutes ' 52-190a, states in pertinent part: “(a) No civil action or apportionment complaint shall be filed to recover damages resulting from personal injury or wrongful death occurring on or after October 1, 1987, whether in tort or in contract, in which it is alleged that such injury or death resulted from the negligence of a health care provider, unless the attorney or party filing the action or apportionment complaint has made a reasonable inquiry as permitted by the circumstances to determine that there are grounds for a good faith belief that there has been negligence in the care or treatment of the claimant.” (Emphasis added.) The court observed that, “Pursuant to this statute, which was enacted as part of the Tort Reform Act of 1986; see Public Acts 1986, No. 86-338, ' 12; a cause of action alleging medical malpractice must be brought by a patient against a health care provider because the language of the statute specifically provides that the alleged negligence must have occurred 'in the care or treatment of the claimant.'” Thus, the plaintiff in this action had no standing to bring a medical malpractice action against the doctor or his employer.

With his common-law negligence claim, the plaintiff fared no better. The outcome of the case rested on precedent, both in and outside the medical realm, concerning identifiable victims. That precedent, in Connecticut, says that a person may be held liable for harm to a third party with whom he had no relationship only if that third party was readily identifiable and it was obvious that harm was likely to come to that particular person if the alleged tortfeasor did or did not act. Here, the Connecticut Supreme Court stated that even if it was foreseeable that the patient might have caused a car accident due to her condition, “the plaintiff was not an identifiable victim, nor does he belong to an identifiable class of victims, because the potential victims of [the patient's] alleged negligence included any random pedestrian, driver, vehicular passenger or other person who happened to come in close proximity to a motor vehicle operated by [the patient] following her diagnosis.”

The court was only willing to abandon this precedent in the case of healthcare providers if public policy reasons dictated that it should. However, the court concluded that quite the opposite was true: “When the accepted standard of care requires a health care provider to advise or warn a patient of the risks of driving due to the patient's underlying medical condition, imposing an additional duty on the health care provider to the victim of the patient's unsafe driving would be problematic, at best, because it would be inconsistent with the physician's duty of loyalty to the patient, would threaten the inherent confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship [by requiring production of medical records as evidence that a warning was or was not given to the patient] and would impermissibly intrude on the physician's professional judgment regarding treatment and care of the patient.”