Opinion ID: 705982
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 4 We can affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Consultant only if we find that there is no genuine issue of material fact, and, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, the movant is entitled to prevail as a matter of law. Sherwood v. Washington Post, 871 F.2d 1144, 1146 (D.C.Cir.1989) (citing Byers v. Burleson, 713 F.2d 856, 859 (D.C.Cir.1983)). In that light, we must evaluate the facts as alleged by Mrs. B. 5 Mrs. B claims that her husband visited Doctor, his regular physician, in 1987. During the visit, Doctor tested Mr. B for HIV, and that test came back positive. Doctor explained to Mr. B that he had been exposed to the virus that causes AIDS, but that the positive test result did not necessarily mean that Mr. B had the AIDS virus in his blood. Doctor recommended a second test, which came back negative. The doctor assured Mr. B that the negative result meant that the AIDS virus was not present in the sample of blood he tested, and Mr. B understood this to mean that he did not have the virus and could not transmit it to anyone. 6 In January, 1988, Consultant began working for Doctor on a part-time basis to see some of Doctor's patients and to perform quality control for the office. During the time in which appellant's cause of action arose, Consultant never saw or met with Mr. B. Consultant's only involvement with Mr. B's medical care arose through his conduct of quality control review of laboratory work that Doctor had ordered done for Mr. B during a September 23 office visit. According to his agreement with Doctor, Consultant's quality control duties involved making sure that the tests Doctor had ordered had been done; that the results did not contain any glaring laboratory or typographical errors; and that any necessary follow-up had been conducted. As a result of his review of Mr. B's September 23 test results, Consultant made some brief suggestions to the patient for Doctor to review. 1 Consultant signed his name below these comments and delivered them to Doctor, who then approved and countersigned the suggestions. The lab reports Consultant reviewed did not contain any records that, without additional information from Mr. B's file, could have alerted Consultant to Mr. B's HIV status. Mrs. B alleges, and has produced the affidavits of two expert witnesses to support her allegation, that Consultant's review of Mr. B's test results nonetheless gave rise to a duty to review the patient's medical records dating back at least to May, 1987. 7 Mr. and Mrs. B originally filed separate complaints, which the court consolidated in 1993, against both Doctor and Consultant. In May, 1994, Mrs. B settled her claim against Doctor. A month later, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Consultant on both claims, but denied Doctor's motion for summary judgment. The court thereafter granted Consultant's Motion to Direct the Entry of Final Judgment in his favor, from which Mrs. B, but not Mr. B, has appealed. Thus, the only parties involved in the appeal are Mrs. B and Consultant. 8 Mrs. B argues that Consultant's review of her husband's records from the September 23 visit, at the request of the treating physician, established a physician-patient relationship between Consultant and Mr. B. Out of that relationship, she claims, Consultant acquired a specific duty to warn her of the risk of HIV transmission from her husband. Mrs. B also contends that a physician owes a general duty of care to foreseeable victims of his or her negligence. Because Consultant negligently failed to warn Mr. B that he could transmit HIV to others, and Mrs. B was a foreseeable victim of that omission, he can be legally held liable to her for the consequences of his negligence. 9 Pretermitting the question of what circumstances, if any, impose a duty upon a physician to notify a third party of a patient's HIV status, we reject the appellant's claims. The District of Columbia has not yet addressed the third-party notification issue, and we find, in any case, that any duty owed by the defendant Consultant in the circumstances of this case was limited to a careful review of the laboratory records referred to him by Mr. B's primary physician.