HCA 6280: Tort Of Negligence

A health care provider must understand many aspects of statutory duty. Duty is “a legal obligation imposed on one to conform to a recognized standard of care to safe guard the rights of others”. The standard of care is usually related to medical malpractice cases. Standard of care is defined as “the caution and prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the circumstances or by appropriate authority for such situations”. This is mainly of importance because all physicians are expected to perform within the guidelines of this duty, and this standard or care changes depending on the circumstances. “Once the duty has been established, the plaintiff must show that it was breached by presenting evidence of the facts of the case and testimony from expert witnesses regarding whether the standard was met”(Showalter, 2014 p 139). Negligence results in the failure to meet this standard of care, and the jury usually decides if the defendant is guilty of committing a negligent act. Causation is an aspect of negligence. The defendant could be held liable for negligence if the act was considered to be foreseeable, and if the injury occurred from a breach of duty.

Negligence is upholding a certain leavel of care by determining if it meets the four components nessessary for a claim; duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages. In this case duty was not handled correctly. Duty means you agree to take care of a health care patients. THe girls working at the Good Samaritan Home did not take proper care of the residents. Breach of duty is broken down into four categories; Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance. In this case the breach of duty refers to nonfeasance. There was a failure to act, by no other employees bringing the ause to attention. Causation requires an injury to be due to the healthcare professionals negligence. In the case of abuse in the Good Samaritan case there was no other way the injuries could have happened. The damages refers to the injuries caused to the residents.

This essay is going to talk about healthcare law and breaches of duty of care. Healthcare law is generally tort law. A “tort” is a legal wrong that the law provides a remedy for. The person that suffers the injury is known as the plaintiff and the person said to of caused the injury is known as the defendant or tortfeasor. Tort law originates from the time of the norman conquest in 1066. Tort law is a type of civil law and tortious wrongs are known as civil wrongs. Tort covers a range of things from trespass to negligence. Negligence is the most common area of tort law that healthcare professionals will come across.

The NHS Litigation Authority is now responsible for claims of clinical negligence, with trusts in England belonging to the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) run by the NHSLA; with the current structure providing indemnity for all those employed by the NHS; whereby ‘NHS employers are ordinarily responsible for the negligent acts of their employees where these occur in the course of the NHS employment’ (NHSLA, 2011). It could be argued that because doctors are no longer individually liable for their actions, this could invoke a reduced standard of care. In spite of this, Towse & Danzon (1999) suggest that with the assumption that an employer is at a better position to mitigate risk than its employees; this move to ‘enterprise liability’ should further improve deterrence. Tappan (2005) adds that adopting enterprise liability helps deterrence by giving hospitals incentives to gather data and eliminate errors; and due to the heightened financial risk, to identify and deal with doctors providing inefficient treatment. This is supported by NHS policy, which states that if it is deemed appropriate to do so, a Trust may ‘take disciplinary action against the individual responsible for the negligence which caused the harm’ (NHS, 2005). Since the NHSLA also provides incentives, such as discounts ‘to hospitals that achieve certain

Charleston Community Memorial Hospital proved a corporate negligence doctrine in the case (Pozgar, 2013). The court found a jury could reasonably find negligence due to the fact that staff did not test for circulation as often as needed, it was concluded that skilled nurses would have been aware of circulation problems, informing attending staff promptly (Law School Case Briefs,2013). There was no argument that the defendant, the hospital in this case, failed to review physicians work, or require a consultation. A jury found that this failure was within reason to assume a negligent act was performed, or not performed in this case (Law School Case Briefs,2013). A person goes to a hospital and within reason expects the hospital to treat them (Pozgar, 2013). There is a legitimate basis in this case to hold the hospital vicariously responsible for torts of its employed staff (Law School Case Briefs,2013). In Darling v. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital, the jury found negligence by both the doctor and the nursing staff, this was supported with evidence during the trial (Law School Case

For a plaintiff to triumph a claim of medical malpractice for negligence, four elements must be established. The first element is proving the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff. The second is to show that the defendant breached the duty to the plaintiff. The third is to show that the plaintiff was harmed and experienced damages. Finally, the fourth is to show that the plaintiff was harmed by the actions of the defendant (Greenberg, 2009).

This proceeding before a Medical Review Panel, pursuant to La. Rev. Stat. §§ 40:1299.41, et seq., is brought by Jimmy Martinez against multiple health care providers, including Dr. Mark Kappelman, a qualified health care provider entitled to have the claim filed against him reviewed by this Panel. The claims made against Dr. Kappelman are mere allegations without support and proof. In a medical malpractice case the burden of proof is on the claimant to establish that Dr. Mark Kappelman’s actions in this matter fell below the standard of care required of similar health care providers. The claimant also bears the burden of proving whether any such alleged act or acts of negligence caused any injuries. It is the duty of the

Our text defines a tort as “a civil wrong” and negligence as “a tort, a civil or personal wrong” (Pozgar, 2012). Negligence as it is related to healthcare is an unintentional commission or omission of an act that a reasonably prudent person or organization would or would not do under normal circumstances. Not following a recognized standard of care could be considered negligence. The case I have chosen to study is one from the Circuit Court of Baltimore City Maryland and is that of Enso Martinez a minor by and through his parent (Rebecca Fielding) vs The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Maryland July 2013. I would describe this as a landmark, “David vs Goliath” case

One approach to minimize large amounts of tort claims for medical malpractice is to put a cap on non-economical awards. Tort reform is the response; a tort is a civil lawsuit for damages over private wrongs other than breach of contract. According to Lau and Johnson (2014), a tort can be categorized into three categories: intentional tort, when tortfeasor acted with intent, negligence, if the tortfeasor did not act intentionally, but failed to act as a reasonable person, and lastly, strict liability, if the tortfeasor is engaged in certain activities, which caused injury or death due to it. The massive medical malpractice cases across the nation have made defending frivolous lawsuits is a national problem; ultimately, the general public

When considering the legalities of this scenario, negligence, vicarious liability, and physician- patient relationship are a few components that affect the outcome of a lawsuit. The amount of legal torts that were violated in this case was enough to cause disputes between patients and healthcare staff. Negligence is a familiar tort that occurs much more than it needs too. Unfortunately in this case, vicarious liability and patient-physician relationship are two considerations that influence this case as well.

Findings from a 2012 Study of Medical Negligence Claiming in Scotland revealed that patient support and advice groups find that when a complaint is made to the NHS in relation to a medical injury a defensive attitude tends to be adopted in response to such complaints. According to Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, Chairman of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, this defensive attitude is what leads to claims being raised against the NHS. He stated that the current clinical negligence regime is what prompts defensiveness within the NHS and that this problem will persist as long as the fear of litigation and stigma of settlement remains. In the literature reviewed there seems to be a general consensus that the requirement for the claimant

The first legal consideration in this case is related to corporate liability. The hospital itself is negligent under this doctrine. Corporate negligence is the failure to provide the equipment, facilities, and staff to carry out the duties of the corporation in accordance with the established standard of conduct (Showalter, 2007). Corporate negligence is evident in this case in regard to the failure to ensure that sufficient healthcare personnel were available to provide the established standard of care to the patients in the facility. Moreover, the personnel that were required to remain at the hospital from the day shift were likely

Negligence is the most common type of liability case that healthcare organization face. It often occurs when a person fails to hold up to the accepted standards of behavior. There are four elements essential to proving negligence: 1. a duty of care, Duty is a legal obligation the defendant owes to the plaintiff. In a negligence case the duty is most commonly expressed as a general obligation to act with care in other words to conduct oneself as a reasonably prudent person would do in similar circumstances. 2. Breach of that duty: A breach of duty occurs when one person or company has a duty of care toward another person or company, but fails to live up to that standard.  A person may be liable for negligence in a personal injury case if his breach of duty caused another person’s injuries. Once the duty has been established, the plaintiff must show that it was breached by presenting evidence of the facts of the case and testimony from expert witness which is usually the same witness who established the duty in the beginning. 3. injury: Damage or harm

Health risk the growth of mal practice and the deposition of quality care needs improvement, many patients are not receiving the fair treatment due compensation. Patients liability should be upheld within any health facility The safety for patients and medical liability is important in healthcare because many physicians have obligations required to be fulfilled by law to make sure the quality of care is done in a professional manner.federal law has created an legal system that still faces issues dealing with quality of care.Many health physicians still lack accuracy when it comes to a patients liability. Malpractice has not made the right changes to set forth better effort to the improvement of quality health care.The way courts handle

In this scenario, all three disciplinary health care providers are guilty for their high negligence in patient’s plan of care and standards of professional conduct. Let’s talk one after one, where each health care professional missed their duties.