stating that the MMA was enacted to address a perceived medical malpractice crisis in New Mexico by "providing a framework for tort liability with which the insurance industry could operate[,]" one that "restrict[s] and limit[s the] plaintiffs' rights under the common law" through "several procedural measures and by establishing a limitation on full recovery for malpractice injury"
How later courts described this case
- stating that the MMA was enacted to address a perceived medical malpractice crisis in New Mexico by "providing a framework for tort liability with which the insurance industry could operate[,]" one that "restrict[s] and limit[s the] plaintiffs' rights under the common law" through "several procedural measures and by establishing a limitation on full recovery for malpractice injury"
- holding that the duty owed by a physician to the general public for injuries caused by a medicated individual upon release would be discharged by a warning
- concluding that there was no "patient control” under the facts of the case, but holding that there was, nevertheless, a duty owed to injured third parties
- holding that a doctor owed a duty to third parties when a powerful medication was administered to a patient in his office who then drove
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
RANSOM, Justice (specially concurring).
I specially concur to express chagrin that seeds of further interprofessional discord needlessly may be sewn by certain language in the dissent. Justice Scarborough asserts that the majority opinion has extended the liability burden of physicians despite this Court’s having rejected extension of the burden of lawyers to include liability to the courtroom adversary of an attorney’s client. In point of fact, the opinion of this Court to which the dissent refers, Garcia v. Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, P.A., 106 N.M. 757 , 750 P.2d 118 (1988), was decided on public policy considerations that support preservation of a lawyer’s special allegiance to a client in an adversary proceeding. As Garcia specifically observes, appropriate means do exist to redress a grievance concerning an attorney’s alleged misconduct toward the adversary. “Within the action out of which a grievance arises, remedies are provided for the benefit and relief of parties wronged through reasonable reliance upon misrepresentations of an adversary’s attorney.” 106 N.M. at 763 , 750 P.2d at 124 .
It is certainly no extension of the liability burden of physicians under tort law to say that a doctor has a duty to refrain from optional outpatient administration of mind altering medication that, under the circumstances, gives rise to an unreasonable risk of injury to others. Reasonableness turns on the foreseeability of injury and the options available to the doctor in treatment of the patient. The conduct of the physician is measured by what a reasonably well-qualified doctor may do under similar circumstances.
With respect to the propriety of our accepting certification from the federal court, we have recently held by per curiam opinion that:
The intent of the certification of facts and determinative answer requirements is that this Court avoid rendering advisory opinions. Relative to the first requirement, it is sufficient if the certification of facts and the record contain the necessary factual predicates to our resolution of the question certified, and it is clear that evidence admissible at trial may be resolved in a manner requiring application of the law in question.
Schlieter v. Carlos, 108 N.M. 507, 508 , 775 P.2d 709, 710 (1989). Here, it is absolutely clear from the record that evidence admissible at trial will require a jury instruction in accordance with the law of this opinion, and that the jury’s findings in accordance with that law will determine the proportionate liability; if any, of the defendant doctor. Our resolution of this legal issue will materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation. See id.