Under Pennsylvania law, a physician may be held liable only under very limited circumstances for injuries sustained by nonpatients. Traditionally, a physician’s duty of care (and corresponding responsibility for injuries) ran only to the patient. However, there are certain circumstances where a physician may be held liable for injuries to a nonpatient as a result of the medical care provided to a patient. A recent en banc panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court considered one of these situations in Matharu v. Muir, 2014 PA Super 29 (Pa. Superior Ct., February 21, 2014) (Matharu II).
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has refused to impose liability upon physicians for injuries to the public at large due to a physician’s failure to properly treat the patient. In Estate of Witthoeft v. Kiskaddon, 557 Pa. 340 (1999), the Supreme Court ruled that an ophthalmologist will not be held liable to the victim of an auto accident allegedly caused by her patient’s poor vision. In the absence of a readily identifiable and specifically foreseeable third-party nonpatient, the court would not recognize a duty of care and therefore impose liability for the harm to the nonpatient. While Pennsylvania appellate courts have been reluctant to subject a physician to liability to a third-party nonpatient, in certain limited circumstances, they have imposed liability for harm occurring to a nonpatient. There are three decisions that have imposed liability for injuries to nonpatients: DiMarco v. Lynch Homes–Chester County, 525 Pa. 558 (1990); Troxel v. A.I. Dupont Institute, 450 Pa. Super. 71 (1996); and Emerich v. Philadelphia Center for Human Development, 554 Pa. 209 (1998).
DiMarco, Troxel and Emerich
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