Moore v. Shah
1982 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 18853, 90 A.D.2d 389, 458 N.Y.S.2d 33 (1982)
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Rule of Law:
A physician does not owe a duty of care to a non-patient organ donor who suffers injury as a result of a deliberate and reflective decision to donate an organ to the physician's patient, even if the patient's need for the organ was allegedly caused by the physician's negligence, because such a donor is generally not within the 'zone of danger' and extending liability would create unmanageable limits.
Facts:
- Marvin Richard Moore's father experienced kidney failure.
- A physician's alleged negligent diagnosis and treatment of the father caused his kidney failure.
- Marvin Richard Moore decided to donate one of his kidneys to his father.
- Marvin Richard Moore's decision to donate was deliberate and reflective, not made under the pressures and exigencies of an emergency situation, and occurred after the defendant physician's alleged negligent acts.
Procedural Posture:
- Marvin Richard Moore and others filed a complaint against the defendant physician, including a third cause of action asserted by Marvin Richard Moore.
- The defendant moved to dismiss the third cause of action of the complaint.
- Special Term (the trial court) granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the third cause of action.
- Marvin Richard Moore appealed Special Term's order to the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department (the court issuing this opinion).
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Issue:
Does a physician owe a legal duty of care to a non-patient who suffers injury as a result of donating a kidney to the physician's patient, where the donation was necessitated by the physician's alleged negligent diagnosis and treatment of the patient and the donor's decision was deliberate rather than an emergency rescue?
Opinions:
Majority - Weiss, J.
No, a physician does not owe a legal duty of care to a non-patient who suffers injury as a result of donating a kidney to the physician's patient, where the donation was necessitated by the physician's alleged negligent diagnosis and treatment and the donor's decision was deliberate rather than an emergency rescue. The court declined to extend the well-defined principles of the rescue doctrine to a situation where the decision to come to the aid of another was deliberate and reflective, not made under the pressures of an emergency, and occurred after the defendant's alleged negligent acts. The predicate for holding a defendant liable is the existence of a duty owed to the plaintiff, the breach of which proximately caused injury, and here, no original duty existed between the physician and Marvin Richard Moore, who was never the physician's patient. While foreseeability is generally an issue for the finder of fact, the court found that foreseeability alone is not enough to impose a duty where none existed before. Extending a physician's liability to every person who conceivably might come forward as a kidney donor would create a group beyond manageable limits, leading to all but limitless liability, as previously noted in Pulka v Edelman. To recover, a plaintiff must be within the 'zone of danger,' as established in Tobin v Grossman and Palsgraf v Long Is. R.R. Co.. It is difficult to charge a physician with the responsibility to foresee every person other than his patient who might be affected by his negligence. Citing DeAngelis v Lutheran Med. Center, the court emphasized that imposing a new legal duty must be exercised with extreme care. The court agreed with the precedent set in Sirianni v Anna and subsequent Court of Appeals decisions, such as Lafferty v Manhasset Med. Center Hosp., which declined to expand liability to third parties not directly injured. Policy considerations militate against such recovery, as 'Every injury has ramifying consequences... The problem for the law is to limit the legal consequences of wrongs to a controllable degree.'
Analysis:
This case establishes a significant boundary for a physician's duty of care, specifically limiting its extension to non-patient third parties who undertake deliberate, non-emergency actions (like organ donation) to aid a patient. It underscores the judiciary's reluctance to expand tort liability to an 'all but limitless' degree, prioritizing a controllable scope of legal consequences over expansive foreseeability. The decision reinforces the 'zone of danger' requirement for third-party recovery and narrows the applicability of the rescue doctrine to spontaneous, emergency situations, thus impacting future medical malpractice claims involving third-party harms not directly caused or immediately observable. It also highlights the policy consideration of preventing an unmanageable class of potential plaintiffs.
