Court Opinion

ID: 9662881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:20:50.038509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:43.468713
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. I believe the majority has given Lane v. Lane, 295 Ark. 671, 752 S.W.2d 25 (1988), a broader reading than was intended by that decision. In Lane we specifically rejected applying the continuous treatment theory to nonfeasance, i.e., we did not mean to include the failure of a treating physician to correct a wrong as a continuing tort and, therefore, within the continuous treatment doctrine. Rather, the cause of action was to be the result of active malfeasance — a series of negligent acts or a continuing course of improper treatment. We quoted from Farley v. Goode, 219 Va. 969, 252 S.E.2d 954 (1979), that treatment should be looked at in its entirety and that within the context of the statute of limitations, the cause of action needed to be “coextensive with the tortious conduct and that the whole transaction [be] inherently negligent.’ Obviously this is a close question, but when examined in its entirety, I believe it falls on the side of nonfeasance as opposed to active and continuous malfeasance. One of the reasons for the continuous treatment rule as stated in Lane is that it can give the physician the opportunity to correct errors before harm ensues — that “it would be absurd to require a wronged patient to interrupt corrective' efforts by serving a summons on the physician.” When the doctor-patient relationship has not been substantial enough to allow for such corrective action by the doctor, I would find that this purpose of the rule cannot be fulfilled and the doctrine should not be applicable. In other words, there must be some quantitative and qualitative measure of the treatment given, and it must rise to sufficient treatment for the application of the continuous treatment doctrine to be logically applied. So, for example, in Davis v. City of New York, 38 N.Y.2d 257, 379 N.Y.S.2d 721, 342 N.E.2d 516 (1975), the court found that where there was misdiagnosis by a city-run cancer detection center involving several contacts at intervals and surgery for cancer at another hospital, there was not continuous treatment, merely intermittent services which did not qualify as continuous treatment. In this case I find the course of treatment insufficient to qualify for the application of the doctrine and I would affirm the trial court.