stating similarity depends not on size or location of community, but on “medical facilities, practices and advantages” available in community
How later courts described this case
- stating similarity depends not on size or location of community, but on “medical facilities, practices and advantages” available in community
- explaining purpose of locality rule and declining to adopt national standard of care
- “If the medical profession recognizes that there are standard treatments, which should be utilized nation-wide this fact should be readily susceptible of proof under the similar locality rule[.]”
- “The -4- opportunities available to practitioners in a community are certainly matters of fact and not law and may be shown by evidence under our own locality rule.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Conley Byrd, Justice, concurring. While I must agree that there is some merit to the minority’s criticism of the “same or similar locality” rule, I find that it has become firmly established as part of the law of this State. The rule did not come into our law as the result of an incorrect interpretation of the Constitution of this State or the United States as was the situation in Parish v. Pitts, 244 Ark. 1239 , 429 S.W. 2d 45 (1968), and therefore it is subject to change by the General Assembly. In that situation under Article 2, § 12 of the Constitution of Arkansas this court is prohibited from suspending or setting aside the law with respect to the “same or similar locality” rule. Article 2, § 12 provides:
“No power of suspending or setting aside the law or laws of the State shall ever be exercised except by the General Assembly.”
For the reasons stated, I concur in the majority opinion.