Opinion ID: 3134367
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ill App. 3d 468; Russell, 149 Ill. App. 3d 268. See Gatlin v.

Text: Ruder, 137 Ill. 2d 284, 292-93 (1990) (specifically disapproving the Russell court's entry of summary judgment upon evidence that the patient's chances of survival absent the malpractice was 50/50). To hold otherwise would free health care providers from legal responsibility for even the grossest acts of negligence, as long as the patient upon whom the malpractice was performed already suffered an illness or injury that could be quantified by experts as affording that patient less than a 50% chance of recovering his or her health. Disallowing tort recovery in medical malpractice actions on the theory that a patient was already too ill to survive or recover may operate as a disincentive on the part of health care providers to administer quality medical care to critically ill or injured patients. Moreover, it has been noted that [i]t is impossible to divine who would fall into one category [survivor] or the other [nonsurvivor]. Not allowing such a case to be decided by a jury means that statistical proof of a less than 50% chance would be dispositive, even though no expert in the world could prospectively state who would survive and who would die. That is why doctors treat all patients, not just those with better than even odds. 84