profession
N.C. high court narrows liability rule
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Feb. 22, 2010
The North Carolina Supreme Court left intact an appeals court ruling that state physicians worry could promote uncertain liability standards and expose them to greater risk.
The February 2009 Court of Appeals decision in Swink v. Weintraub found that the state's locality rule -- which requires an evaluation of medical liability cases based on community, versus national, standards of care -- applied to only one of three elements required for proving negligence.
Physicians contended that the rule was meant to apply uniformly across the board to prevent inconsistent court judgments. The physician defendant in the case appealed the ruling to the state's high court, which on Jan. 28 refused to hear the case.
The North Carolina Medical Society and the Litigation Center of the American Medical Association and State Medical Societies, while not directly involved in the case, had prepared to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the high court supporting broad application of the locality rule.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/02/22/prbf0222.htm.
