Court Opinion

ID: 9598880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:12:51.397291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:43.068295
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I cannot go along with the majority’s misplaced confidence on the factually distinguishable panel decision in Cechman v. Travis, 202 Ga. App. 255 (414 SE2d 282). The majority’s holding in the case sub judice legislates more than the Code section defines and undermines the legislature’s stated goal to protect “children whose health and welfare are adversely affected and further threatened by the conduct of those responsible for their care and protection.” OCGA § 19-7-5 (a). Because two expert physicians, Dr. Robert Carlton Cater and Dr. David Krugman, deposed that Dr. Vance’s relationship as T. R. C.’s physician (a doctor charged with the care of a 13-year-old child under foster care) imposed professional responsibility and trust upon Dr. Vance inclusive and apart from those prescribed in OCGA § 19-7-5, and because these physicians opined that Dr. Vance breached his duty by failing to report the sexual activity which resulted in T. R. C.’s pregnancy and Baby Boy C.’s birth, I believe genuine issues of material fact remain, for determination by a jury and not this Court, as to Dr. Vance’s liability for failing to report the sexual contact T. R. C. endured (whether consensual or not) while the child was under State supervised foster care.
*616Decided December 2, 1997
Jones, Cork & Miller, Thomas C. Alexander, Sharon H. Reeves, for appellants.
Butler & MacDougald, Larry K. Butler, Daniel MacDougald III, for appellees.