Massachusetts judge allows liability claim by plaintiff who was not a patient

In the Courts. By Bonnie Booth, AMNews contributor. Dec. 11, 2006.

A Massachusetts judge's recent refusal to dismiss a medical liability claim that a man filed against a physician he had never met or received treatment from is the second in less than 12 months in that state to open doctors to these types of actions.

Taken together, the two rulings demonstrate a willingness to extend a physician's duty beyond the patient-physician relationship to nonpatients under certain circumstances.

In October, Superior Court Judge Peter W. Agnes Jr. refused to dismiss a lawsuit against a physician whose patient lost control of his car and struck the plaintiff, who was riding a motorcycle.

According to court documents, the plaintiff, Jeremy Arsenault, sued Peter C. McConarty, MD, alleging that Dr. McConarty discharged Israel Ortiz from the hospital without warning him about the potential risks of taking antiglycemic medications when blood sugar levels are low. About 45 minutes after Ortiz was discharged, he lost consciousness as a result of low blood sugar, crossed the center line of traffic and struck Arsenault.

Dr. McConarty asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit because he did not have a physician-patient relationship with Arsenault and did not owe him a duty of care. Arsenault, however, argued that Dr. McConarty owed him a duty of care because Massachusetts' law has started to lean toward the idea that people have a duty not to do something "that expose[s] others to unreasonable and foreseeable risks of harm," according to court documents.