Opinion ID: 2148928
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: marketing evidence

Text: The special administrator asserts that Beerman's evidence relating to the marketing campaign conducted by Clarkson West in the years prior to Karel's death was relevant to a determination of the applicable standard of care. Relevant evidence means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence. [6] For evidence to be relevant, all that must be established is a rational, probative connection, however slight, between the offered evidence and a fact of consequence. [7] In a malpractice action involving professional negligence, the burden of proof is upon the plaintiff to demonstrate the generally recognized medical standard of care, that there was a deviation from that standard by the defendant, and that the deviation was the proximate cause of the plaintiff's alleged injuries. [8] Obviously, the marketing materials do not pertain to the specific medical care received by Karel at Clarkson West. However, we understand the special administrator to contend that the marketing evidence is relevant to the standard of care to which Clarkson West should be held. We find no indication in the record that Clarkson West claimed to be anything other than a full-service emergency room open 24 hours per day and capable of addressing life-threatening conditions; Menolascino's deposition testimony offered in evidence by the special administrator confirmed this fact. The jury was instructed that [a] physician of an emergency room has the duty to possess and use the care, skill, and knowledge ordinarily possessed and used under like circumstances by other emergency room physicians engaged in a similar practice in the same or similar community. The marketing materials would add or subtract nothing with respect to the nature of the facility for purposes of defining the applicable standard of care. And, as one court has recently noted in concluding that a hospital's marketing materials were not even discoverable, the standard of care in a medical malpractice action is measured against local, statewide, or nationwide standards and the `superior knowledge and skill' that a provider actually possesses,. . . not against the knowledge and skill that the provider claims to possess in its advertising. [9] In its petition, the special administrator alleged that the marketing materials misled . . . Karel . . . to believe that Clarkson West . . . was staffed by individuals who possessed the requisite knowledge and skill to identify serious and life-threatening conditions and to properly attend to those conditions in a timely and expedient manner. We, like the trial court, read this allegation as one for negligent misrepresentation. One of the elements of a cause of action for negligent misrepresentation is justifiable reliance on the part of the plaintiff. [10] Neither the offer of proof nor any other part of the record affords any basis for concluding that Karel relied upon or was even aware of the marketing activities undertaken by Clarkson West when she chose to seek medical care at the facility. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in sustaining the relevancy objections to the marketing materials.