Panel Adds Piece to ER Puzzle

As it wrapped up its end-of-term cases last month, the Georgia Court of Appeals added another piece to the puzzle that the new standard for medical malpractice cases against emergency room personnel has created for the courts.

The Nov. 21 decision by a three-judge panel said a Dougherty County judge was correct that the 2005 statute, which is supposed to make it harder for plaintiffs to win ER cases, applied to the case of a man who became irreversibly paralyzed by the time he arrived at another medical center to which Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital’s ER transferred him. But the panel reversed the grant of summary judgment to the defense, saying the plaintiffs should be able to argue to a jury that they met the new standard, which says no health care provider can be held liable for “emergency medical care in a hospital emergency department” unless the provider is shown to have committed gross negligence, a higher burden for plaintiffs than the usual negligence standard. At issue in the case is both when the gross negligent standard applies and what consttutes gross negligence.