Court Opinion

ID: 9670644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:23:51.904383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:05.827840
License: Public Domain

COYNE, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result reached in the court’s opinion, but I believe the majority’s assumption that Dr. Allan negligently failed to diagnose Haavisto’s tuberculosis over a period of 7 months is premature. At this point the only facts presented by the record are found in a convicted felon’s version of the story. The radiologist reported to Dr. Allan that Haavisto’s several chest X-rays were essentially negative although he once noted the presence of mild emphysema. There had not been a case of active tuberculosis at Stillwater Prison for 10 years, and there is the possibility that an inmate at a correctional institution might advance his own agenda by repeated reports of illness — real, imaginary, or feigned.
This is not to say that Dr. Alan exercised due care and skill in the performance of medical services at Stillwater. Neither is it to excuse his negligence, if any there was. It is simply to observe that the question of Dr. Allan’s conduct is yet to be tried, and the facts demonstrated by the evidence produced for the jury’s determination are yet to be found. Until a jury has decided that issue, it seems to me that Dr. Alan and his professional reputation are entitled to the same assumption of acceptable conduct that we accord defendants accused of criminal misconduct.