Massachusetts doctors liable to third parties for failure to warn patients.

Trial, March, 2008 by Pannell, Susan J.

A physician owes a duty of reasonable care, under ordinary negligence principles, to everyone foreseeably put at risk by the doctor's failure to warn a patient of the potential side effects of treatment, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has held.

Noting that courts in other states have imposed this duty in similar circumstances, the court reversed summary judgment and remanded for trial a case involving a doctor whose 75-year-old patient, not warned that his medications could impair his driving ability, lost consciousness behind the wheel of his car and fatally injured a child. (Coombes v. Florio, 877 N.E.2d 567 (Mass. 2007).)

The court said the duty arises "when the side effects in question include drowsiness, dizziness, fainting, or other...

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