Removing a bad precedent: Louisiana high court makes right ruling on liability

The state Supreme Court struck down a lower court ruling that would have made physicians vulnerable to lawsuits over patient transfers.

Editorial. March 4, 2002.

Coleman v. Deno started out as a routine-sounding -- if questionable -- malpractice lawsuit in Louisiana. Then an appeals court used it to greatly expand physician liability over patient transfers. Fortunately, a ruling in January by the Louisiana Supreme Court at least put a halt to the dangerous precedent the case would have created.

What the state's high court overturned was a lower appeal panel's creation of a new right to sue based on intentional "patient dumping" by a physician. (The case was brought over a doctor's decision to transfer a patient to receive antibiotic treatment.)

Never mind that the state malpractice law already amply covers physician conduct, or that both federal and state patient anti-dumping laws rightly center on the hospital's responsibility over transfers from the emergency department. A friend-of-the-court brief from the AMA/State Medical Society Litigation Center in partnership with Louisiana state and local medical societies argued these points in seeking to overturn the lower court's ruling.

The bad -- and baffling -- decision by the lower court would have established a firm precedent within Louisiana and one that may well have had influence in other states. The result would have been costly for physicians and dangerous for patients. In this instance, the "intentional" finding negated the state's malpractice cap, and would have cost the doctor personally about $3 million. The chilling effect of such a verdict puts patients at risk of not being transferred to the most suitable facility due to liability concerns. [...]