Opinion ID: 2615017
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: mistake of judgment as a defense

Text: The trial court instructed the jury that if [the doctor] possesses ordinary learning, skill, and experience and exercises ordinary care in applying same, he is not responsible for mistakes of judgment. [58] Mistake of judgment was not defined for the jury and the court did not give the accompanying OUJI instruction that puts mistake of judgment in its proper context  i.e., defines it as a situation in which the doctor faces a choice of alternative treatments. [59] A physician, facing a range of competing options which are all medically acceptable, may choose one which later proves to have been less effective than another might have been. Selection of any of these options is not negligence. The choice is said to be a matter of judgment and choosing a less effective option is considered a mistake of judgment. The plaintiffs urge [60] that Oklahoma should join a number of other jurisdictions which have disapproved mistake-of-judgment instructions. [61] The chief criticism is that this instruction is seemingly inconsistent and confusing to a jury, since the word mistake in itself implies deviation from a code of behavior. [62] Although we recently affirmed in Boyanton [63] the use of the mistake-of-judgment instruction, we were there urged to decide that a specialist's mistake in judgment should be the equivalent of negligence per se. We declined to do so, recognizing that an error in judgment is not necessarily negligence. Implicit in that decision was the notion that the Boyanton evidence supported a mistake-of-judgment instruction. We need not reach today the broader question whether mistake-of-judgment instructions should be condemned. It suffices to say the instruction given in this case was unwarranted with respect to both the mother's and the wrongful death claims. The doctors contended at trial that they did not interpose the mistaken judgment defense as part of their negation of negligence. [64] There was no proof that any of them had the choice of several alternatives, equally acceptable medically, and elected one which later proved to be less effective than another might have been. Rather a contest ensued at nisi prius over the applicable standard for the acceptable level of care. The mother argued that the standard required that Rho-GAM be given even if 72 hours had elapsed after the miscarriage or the D & C. The doctors contended that the standard called for Rho-GAM to be given, if at all, within 72 hours of the miscarriage. The controversy over skills' standard was not the right context for a mistake-of-judgment instruction, which is proper solely for alternative-treatment cases  to guard against the imposition of professional liability for acts or omissions that are not in breach of the skills' standard. In short, a mistake-of-judgment defense was not interposed below and its inclusion in the instructions was error.