Court Opinion

ID: 9698377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:48:56.153269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:40.445487
License: Public Domain

*651WILENTZ, Chief Justice, and GARIBALDI, Justice,
concurring.
We agree with the majority’s decision to distinguish this case from Portee v. Jaffee, 84 N.J. 88 (1980). We would, however, await “an appropriate case” before deciding whether the common-law remedy for death or serious injury caused by medical malpractice should be extended to the consequent emotional distress of family members, including situations in which family members are contemporaneously aware that the misdiagnosis is causing injury to their loved one.
“The torts process, like the law itself, is a human institution designed to accomplish certain social objectives.” People Express Airlines, Inc. v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 100 N.J. 246, 254 (1985). Courts have always shaped the law of negligence to further societal interests in curtailing or encouraging certain types of behavior. Id. at 254-55; see Henderson, Expanding the Negligence Concept: Retreat From the Rule of Law, 51 Ind.L.J. 467, 482 (1976).
Expanding liability should entail the balancing of many interests: “a weighing of the relationships of the parties, the nature of the risk, and the public interest in the proposed solution.” Goldberg v. Housing Auth. of Newark, 38 N.J. 578, 583 (1962); see also B. Cardozo, The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928), reprinted in Selected Writings of Benjamin Nathan Cardozo 251, 300 (M. Hall ed. 1947) [hereinafter Cardozo ] (changes in the law must be preceded “by a balancing of social interests, and estimate of social values.”) These societal interests must be protected through continual re-evaluation.
We suspect that the cost to society of expanding medical malpractice liability to allow a family member to recover for his or her emotional distress as a result of a physician’s improper diagnosis will outweigh the benefits to society. Possible costs to society include the increasing number of physicians who *652refuse to practice in certain fields,1 the cost, in all fields, of an increase in “defensive medicine,”2 and the increasing cost of medical treatment itself.3 The loss is the failure to compensate for the suffering of family members arising from the death or serious injury of a loved one caused by medical malpractice. We do not believe that the majority achieves any additional deterrence given the present state of medical malpractice liability.4
A doctor who breaches a duty owed directly to a patient must compensate the patient for his or her injuries. Likewise, if a doctor commits malpractice that results in the patient’s death, the family members may recover for their loss of the loved one in a wrongful-death action. Moreover, we recognize *653a duty owed directly to the parents when a doctor commits malpractice that causes a fetus to be stillborn, Giardina v. Bennett, 111 N.J. 412, 428-29 (1988).
We acknowledge that the trend of the prior decisions in the area of bystander emotional distress has been to expand liability. It is not, however, the trend, but the social policy underlying it, that should guide the development of the common law. See Cardozo, supra, at 284.
While we suspect that society will not be served by allowing this type of recovery, we cannot make that final decision based on the record in this case. The case was not argued on that ground. Accordingly, we need not, and should not, decide it. Indeed, precisely because it is such an important issue, the Court should withhold judgment. We therefore do not join the majority’s holding in respect of a situation not before us.
WILENTZ, C.J., and GARIBALDI, J., concurring in the result.
For affirmance — Justices CLIFFORD, HANDLER, POLLOCK, O’HERN and STEIN — 5.

According to a recent New York Times article, a study by the New York chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists revealed that “nearly 10 percent of the state’s approximately 2,000 obstetricians are abandoning baby delivery each year.” French, New York Obstetricians Report a Crisis, N.Y. Times, Oct. 6, 1988, at Bl, col. 2.

Zuckerman, Roller, Bovbjerg, Information on Malpractice: A Review of Empirical Research on Major Policy Issues, 49 Law and Contemporary Problems 85, 108-109 (1986); Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice: Hearing Before the Senate Comm, on Labor and Human Resources, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 167 (1984) [hereinafter Hearing ] (statement of Elroy Raines, Assoc. Director, Department of Professional Liability, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) (survey of gynecologists revealed "that 76% had substantially increased testing and other diagnostic procedures.”); Hearing, supra, at 155 (statement of James E. Davis, M.D., Speaker of the House of Delegates, American Medical Association) (citing projected costs of defensive medicine at $15.1 billion).

See Ingber, Rethinking Intangible Injuries: A Focus on Remedy, 73 Cal.L. Rev. 772, 790 (1985); Bell, Legislative Intrusions Into the Common Law of Medical Malpractice: Thoughts About the Deterrent Effect of Tort Liability, 35 Syracuse L.Rev. 939, 957-59 (1984) (citing study that doctors pass on to patients more than 100% of their premium increases).

Miller, The Scope of Liability for Negligence Infliction of Emotional Distress: Making the Punishment Fit the Crime, 1 U.Hawaii L.Rev. 1, 25 (1979); Bell, supra, note 3, at 965-70 (citing studies that found doctors already alter their behavior in response to the threat of liability).