Opinion ID: 1852398
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Institutional Competence

Text: As one justification for judicial deference to certain policy-makers, it is said that [t]he judicial branch lacks the fact-finding ability of the legislature. Ransom, 113 Idaho at 205, 743 P.2d at 73; Helton v. Knox County, 922 S.W.2d 877, 885 (Tenn. 1996); see also Brooks v. Logan, 127 Idaho 484, 903 P.2d 73 (1995). The truth of this assertion, however, is contextual. In some contextssuch as the one involved in this casethe reverse is true. The distinction was recognized in Womble v. Singing River Hospital, 618 So.2d 1252 (Miss.1993), where the application of this premise to medical personnel ... making treatment decisions was soundly rejected. 618 So.2d at 1262-63. Specifically, the Supreme Court of Mississippi explained: [T]he judicial system is perfectly capable of adjudicating the reasonableness of medical treatment decisions. Our courts do it every day in medical malpractice actions heard across this state. The medical treatment decisions made by medical personnel at state health institutions are no different from the private medical care decisions that are currently being judged. Id. at 1264 (emphasis added). Similarly, the judiciary of Alabama has special competence to decide discrete cases and controversies involving particular parties and specific facts. Alabama Power Co. v. Citizens of Alabama, 740 So.2d 371, 381 (Ala.1999) (emphasis added). Within that sphere, the institutional competence of the judiciary is supreme. The standard of care for medical treatment is the same whether the institution employing the treating physician is a public institution or a private one. In other words, physicians are, in either case, obligatedboth legally and morallyto exercise due care in treating their patients. Determining whether that obligation was met in any given case is a matter peculiarly within the prerogative of the judicial branch. The matter is not, in any sense, legislative or executive. Indeed, the only branch with a legitimate role in issues involving a breach of the standard of care owed by a physician to a patient is the judicial branch, acting in its fact-finding role.