Liability to Non-Patients: Recent Decisions Offer Guidance

Although, generally, there must be a physician-patient or a hospital-patient relationship for a legal duty of care to exist upon which liability may be founded, in some situations, health care providers may be held liable to someone other than a patient. See Moore and Gaier, “A Doctor's Liability to a Non-Patient,” NYLJ Feb. 3, 1998, p. 3; Moore and Gaier, “Recent Decisions on Physician Liability to Nonpatients,” NYLJ Oct. 3, 2000, p. 3; Moore and Gaier, “Recent Decisions on Liability to Non-Patients,” NYLJ June 3, 2003, p. 3. This issue may currently be of particular interest in view of recent incidents involving the Ebola virus in this country. For instance, the news reports from Texas of a symptomatic patient being discharged from an emergency room after he reported he recently returned from a West African country highlights the potential impact that medical negligence can have on non-patients. Fortunately, no one with whom that patient came in contact after his discharge contracted the virus. But what if they had? Can a hospital be held liable to people who were not its patients, but who nevertheless become sick as a result of mistakes in treating a patient?