Case Title: Badger v. McGregor

Citation: 2006-Ohio-3

Docket Number: 20041548

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2006-01-04T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Badger v. McGregor, 107 Ohio St.3d 1210, 2006-Ohio-3.] 
 
 
BADGER ET AL., APPELLANTS, v. MCGREGOR ET AL., APPELLEES. 
[Cite as Badger v. McGregor, 107 Ohio St.3d 1210, 2006-Ohio-3.] 
Appeal dismissed as improvidently accepted. 
(No. 2004-1548 — Submitted September 21, 2005 — Decided January 4, 2006.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin County,  
No. 03AP-167, 2004-Ohio-4036. 
__________________ 
{¶ 1} The cause is dismissed, sua sponte, as having been improvidently 
accepted. 
{¶ 2} The court orders that the opinion of the court of appeals may not 
be cited as authority except by the parties inter se. 
 
MOYER, C.J., LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR and O’DONNELL, JJ., 
concur. 
 
RESNICK and PFEIFER, JJ., dissent. 
 
LANZINGER, J., dissents and would affirm the judgment of the court of 
appeals. 
__________________ 
 
PFEIFER, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 3} I dissent because this case should have been decided on the merits.  
The error made by the appellate court is one that has been repeated in other 
appellate districts in this state and needs to be addressed. 
{¶ 4} This case concerns the law of informed consent and how much 
information a treating physician must give a patient about drugs he is prescribing 
for the patient’s care.  This court spoke clearly as to informed consent in Nickell 
v. Gonzalez (1985), 17 Ohio St.3d 136, 17 OBR 281, 477 N.E.2d 1145, syllabus, 
setting forth the standard of disclosure for physicians: 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
2 
{¶ 5} “The tort of lack of informed consent is established when: 
{¶ 6} “(a) The physician fails to disclose to the patient and discuss the 
material risks and dangers inherently and potentially involved with respect to the 
proposed therapy, if any; 
{¶ 7} “(b) the unrevealed risks and dangers which should have been 
disclosed by the physician actually materialize and are the proximate cause of the 
injury to the patient; and 
{¶ 8} “(c) a reasonable person in the position of the patient would have 
decided against the therapy had the material risks and dangers inherent and 
incidental to treatment been disclosed to him or her prior to the therapy.” 
{¶ 9} The court below held that to establish the tort of lack of informed 
consent, “expert testimony must be presented to prove ‘what a reasonable medical 
practitioner of the same school practicing in the same or similar communities 
under the same or similar circumstances would have disclosed to his patient about 
the risks incident to a proposed treatment, and [to prove] that the physician 
departed from that standard.’ ” Badger v. McGregor, Franklin App. No. 03AP-
167, 2004-Ohio-4036, 2004 WL 1729656, ¶ 18, quoting Pierce v. Goldman (May 
17, 1989), Hamilton App. No. C-880320, 1989 WL 50772. 
{¶ 10} Standard-of-care testimony, however, is absolutely not a part of the 
Nickell test.  The lower court misinterprets the second part of the test, which states 
that “the unrevealed risks and dangers which should have been disclosed by the 
physician actually materialize and are the proximate cause of the injury to the 
patient.” (Emphasis added.) Nickell, 17 Ohio St.3d 136, 17 OBR 281, 477 N.E.2d 
1145, syllabus. 
{¶ 11} The lower court reads the “should have been disclosed” language 
to require expert testimony to determine what a reasonable physician should have 
disclosed.  However, the “should have” language in the second part of the test in 
fact reflects the first part of the test, which requires the physician “to disclose to 
January Term, 2006 
3 
the patient and discuss the material risks and dangers inherently and potentially 
involved with respect to the proposed therapy.” Id.  As to the first prong of the 
test, the physician is duty bound to disclose the material risks of the proposed 
therapy.  Those material risks are what are referred to in the second prong of the 
test as “the unrevealed risks and dangers which should have been disclosed.” 
(Emphasis added.) Id. 
{¶ 12} Materiality is determined through a reasonable-person standard, 
not through standard-of-care testimony. Id. at 139, 17 OBR 281, 477 N.E.2d 
1145.  Nickell approved of a jury instruction that stated, “ ‘[A] risk is material 
when a reasonable person, in what the physician knows or should know to be the 
patient’s condition, would be likely to attach significance to the risk or cluster of 
risks in deciding whether or not to forego the proposed treatment.’ ” Id. 
{¶ 13} Proof of deviation from the standard of care is not a part of a tort 
claim for lack of informed consent.  Nor is it relevant to any of the three elements 
of a successful claim.  This court should have made that fact clear in a decision on 
the merits. 
 
RESNICK, J., concurs in the foregoing opinion. 
__________________ 
 
Robert M. Losey, for appellants. 
 
Arnold Todaro & Welch Co., L.P.A., Gerald J. Todaro, and Karen L. 
Clouse, for appellees. 
_______________________