Court Opinion

ID: 9703719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:06:00.668948+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:51.438390
License: Public Domain

R. M. Daniels, J.
(dissenting). The majority decides that a physician may be liable for his alleged medical malpractice to an unidentified third person who might be injured by a patient’s conduct resulting from the physician’s treatment of the patient. I disagree and would affirm the trial court’s grant of partial summary judgment on this issue.
As pointed out by the majority, the Supreme Court held that medical malpractice constitutes "the negligent performance by a physician or surgeon of the duties devolved and incumbent upon him on account of his contractual relations with his patient”. Delahunt v Finton, 244 Mich 226, 230; 221 NW 168 (1928). The majority today extends this duty to persons not involved in the physician-patient contractual relationship. The issue here is "duty” not whether medical malpractice is "in essence” a tort claim in negligence. Thus, the majority’s reliance upon Duvall v Goldin, 139 Mich App 342; 362 NW2d 275 (1984), is misplaced. Duvall was an action sounding in negligence, not medical malpractice. Without expressing any opinion upon whether I agree or disagree *256with the Duvall decision, it simply fails to support the majority’s conclusion in this case.
I likewise disagree with the majority’s approach to having medical malpractice insurance serve as the lightning rod for permitting this kind of malpractice action. Today the cost of malpractice insurance is already reaching astronomical proportions. See, e.g., The Detroit News, Friday, May 24, 1985, p 1A, Doctors Organize for a Fight. To say that the availability of medical malpractice insurance justifies the present claim ignores this most recent and disturbing phenomenon.
Accordingly, for these reasons, I vote to affirm the trial court’s grant of partial summary judgment dismissing plaintiff’s medical malpractice claim.