Medical Malpractice Update: NY High Court Rules on Third Party Liability

By Floyd Arthur

In an interesting twist on medical malpractice case law, New York’s highest court ruled on Dec. 15, 2015, that physicians can be held liable if they fail to warn a patient of a medication’s side effects and that patient subsequently injures someone else. The N.Y. State Court of Appeals reversed two lower courts’ findings that third parties have no standing in a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Typically, a plaintiff must establish that a physician-patient relationship existed in order to have a medical malpractice lawsuit heard in court.

The case, Davis v. South Nassau Communities Hospital, centered around a car accident involving a female patient who was treated in the Emergency Department of South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside, New York. The woman, Lorraine Walsh, was given an injection of the painkiller Dilaudid and the benzodiazepine Ativan to treat complaints of abdominal pain. Shortly thereafter, she was discharged and allowed to go home.

According to Ms. Walsh and hospital records, the physician and physician assistant who treated the patient failed to warn her that she should not drive. So she got in her car and attempted to drive herself home.

Shortly after getting on the road, Ms. Walsh became disoriented, drove into oncoming traffic and crashed into another car, injuring the driver, Edward Davis. Mr. Davis sued the hospital for malpractice, claiming that the doctor and PA were at fault.

The case was dismissed by a lower court on the grounds that the treating physician owed no “duty of care” to the person injured in the car crash. However, the Court of Appeals deemed that, by failing to warn the patient of the medications likely effects, the defendants created “a peril affecting every motorist in Walsh's vicinity. Defendants are the only ones who could have provided a proper warning of the effects of that medication.”

The court emphasized that the decision did not extend the responsibilities of a treating physician in any way. “It is already the function of a physician to advise the patient of the risks and possible side effects of prescribed medication,”  it declared. “We merely extend the scope of persons to whom the physician may be responsible for failing to fulfill that responsibility.”

The Court’s decisions was opposed by the Medical Society of the State of New York and the American Medical Association, who filed an “amicus curiae” (friend of the court) brief arguing that the ruling would expose medical providers to an endless number of lawsuits.

Although the incidence of medical malpractice lawsuits in the United States has been declining in recent years, new interpretations of existing laws can impact that trend at any time. That’s why it’s so important to review your medical malpractice insurance with an insurance professional regularly. Our expert staff is here to help. Just call us at 516-292-3780 any weekday between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., or simply request a free quote online now.