Legal considerations relevant to emergency department radiology are significant. Most patients seeking emergency care are acutely ill. Imaging examination must be done promptly and interpreted without delay. Misdiagnosis is the most common allegation lodged against emergency radiologists as a basis for liability. Missing an abnormality on a radiograph performed in the emergency setting is never easy to explain: it can occur for a variety of reasons. Trauma care creates a "perfect storm" for medical and radiological errors: unstable patients, incomplete histories, timecritical decisions, concurrent tasks and often junior personnel working after-hours in busy emergency departments. Although good medical practice helps ensure against claims, the value of effective communication is also important. The emergency department regularly receives inebriated and uncooperative patients with whom the physician has had no prior contact. If the emergency department physician