Opinion ID: 2334444
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Duty to Scott Hood

Text: The third question certified to us is whether, when a laboratory analyzes an amniocentesis specimen and the results are provided to the mother's physician but relied on by both parents, the laboratory has a sufficient relationship with the father to give rise to a duty of care. The question stems from LabCorp's view that, even if, by applying Maryland law, Karen would have a cognizable cause of action, her husband Scott would not. LabCorp argues that (1) there was no relationship between it and Scott from which any duty to him could flow, and (2) the action hinges on the right that the plaintiff would have to terminate the pregnancy upon learning that the fetus was afflicted with CF, and that right belonged solely to Karen. Our response to the question certified cannot be more than maybe, because anything more definitive will depend upon subsidiary facts that are for the District Court to determine. We can, however, quickly dispose of LabCorp's notion that any duty of care to Scott is precluded as a matter of law because the right to terminate the pregnancy belonged solely to Karen. It is true that the ultimate decision whether to terminate a pregnancy ordinarily rests with the pregnant woman, but it is also true that, in many cases, especially when the woman is married, that decision is one jointly arrived at by the woman and her husband, as, from the facts presented to us, was the situation here. That Karen could have made the decision by herself is not a basis for holding, as a matter of law, that no duty of care extended to Scott. Nothing that we said in Dehn v. Edgecombe, supra, 384 Md. 606, 865 A.2d 603; Doe v. Pharmacia, 388 Md. 407, 879 A.2d 1088 (2005), or any comparable case would preclude the finding of a duty to Scott as a matter of law. In Dehn, we confirmed the long-held view that, as a general rule, recovery for malpractice against a physician is allowed only where there is a relationship between the doctor and patient. 384 Md. at 620, 865 A.2d at 611. The issue there was whether a wife could recover against a physician with whom she had no doctor-patient relationship based on the physician's alleged failure to give proper advice to her husband following the husband's vasectomy, as a result of which she became pregnant. We found no basis in Dehn to create an exception to the general rule that limited the scope of a physician's duty of care to that of the physician's patient and rejected the argument that mere foreseeability of harm sufficed to create a duty to the wife. We maintained the view that it is only in a limited number of cases where a special relationship sufficient to impose a duty of care will be found in the absence of traditional tort duty, id. at 625, 865 A.2d at 614, and concluded that there was no basis for finding such a special relationship to exist in that case. There was no connection at all between the wife and the doctor, and we rejected the notion that mere awareness by the physician that the patient was married sufficed to create a special relationship with the wife or extend a duty to her. To do so, we noted, would serve to expand the duty to all potential sexual partners of the patienta possibly large and unknowable class. We followed a similar approach in Doe. The defendant there was a laboratory in the business of cultivating two strains of the HIV virus for research purposes. It periodically tested its employees for one of the strains but did not test for the second strain. If the test it used showed a positive result, a second test was conducted, but the second test could confirm only the one strain, and thus could not rule out the existence of the other. One of its employees once tested positive on the first test and negative on the second, but he was not told that the result of that might be a second strain infection. The employee did, at some point, become infected with the second strain, as did his wife. The issue was whether the wife had a cause of action against the employer, and, applying the principles enunciated in Dehn, we held that she did not, as there was no duty of care running from the employer to her. As in Dehn, we were concerned that creating a duty to unknown sexual partners would create an expansive new duty to an indeterminate class of people. Doe, supra, 388 Md. at 420, 879 A.2d at 1095. There is, of course, one important distinction between those cases and this one. To extend a duty to Scott would not risk an extension to an indeterminate class of peopleany and all potential sexual partners of the patient/clientbut only to the father of the child who would be responsible for the child's support. There is thus no generically pragmatic impediment to recognizing such a limited extended duty. Still, although the existence of duty is a question of law, the answer to that question, as with most questions of law, is necessarily fact-based: does the evidence establish a sufficient relationship between Scott and LabCorp, given the nature of the task LabCorp was employed to perform, the circumstances surrounding its employment to perform that task, including any relationship Scott may have had with Ms. Kimball or Dr. Pinkert, and the use likely to be made of its report, to create a duty of care to Scott? Because the answer to that question requires some specific factfinding, which is for the District Court to do, we are unable to provide a more definite answer. CERTIFIED QUESTIONS OF LAW ANSWERED AS SET FORTH ABOVE; COSTS TO BE EQUALLY DIVIDED BY THE PARTIES.