FAHEY, J.
This action arises from a motor vehicle accident that occurred after nonparty Lorraine A. Walsh was treated at defendant South Nassau Communities Hospital by defendants Regina E. Hammock, DO and Christine DeLuca, RPA-C, that is, medical professionals employed by defendant Island Medical Physicians, P.C. (collectively, Island Medical defendants). As a part of that treatment, defendants intravenously administered to Walsh an opioid narcotic pain-killer and a benzodiazepine drug without warning her that such medication either impaired or could impair her ability to safely operate an automobile. Shortly thereafter, Walsh drove herself from the Hospital and, while allegedly impaired by the medication administered to her at that facility, she was involved in an accident. The automobile she operated crossed a double yellow line and struck a bus driven by Edwin Davis (plaintiff).
Here we are confronted with the question whether third-party liability can attach when a hospital administered drugs to a patient and then released her, in an impaired state, without any warning that the drugs affected or could have affected her ability to safely operate a motor vehicle. Stated differently, the main question is whether defendants owed a duty to plaintiff and his wife, Dianna,
We are mindful that in addressing the modification of a legal duty, its reach must be limited by what is foreseeable.
On March 4, 2009, Walsh sought treatment at the Hospital's emergency room. According to plaintiffs, Walsh's medical records indicate that she drove herself to the Hospital, where she was intravenously administered Dilaudid, an opioid narcotic pain-killer, and Ativan, a benzodiazepine drug, at 11:00 a.m.
The record reflects that "[c]ommon side effects [of Ativan] include sedation, dizziness, weakness, unsteadiness, and disorientation." Plaintiffs' expert averred that such drug has a "sedative/hypnotic" effect. Plaintiffs' expert also explained that "Dilaudid has two to eight times the painkilling effect of morphine," that the half-life of intravenously-administered Dilaudid is two to four hours, and that the Dilaudid package label and package insert contain various cautionary instructions pertinent to this matter. For example, plaintiffs' expert noted that "the package label for Dilaudid states that it `may impair mental and/or physical ability needed to perform potentially hazardous activities such as driving a car or operating machinery.'" The same expert further noted that the section of the package insert for Dilaudid "titled Use In Ambulatory Patients ... states that the drug `may impair mental and/or physical ability required for the performance of potentially hazardous tasks (e.g., driving, operating machinery). Patients should be cautioned accordingly.'" In the words of that expert, the "insert also states that the most common adverse effects of [Dilaudid] are `more prominent in[, inter alia,] ambulatory patients.'"
Walsh was discharged from the Hospital at 12:30 p.m. on the date in question. She drove herself away from that facility. Nineteen minutes after that discharge, Walsh was involved in
Plaintiffs subsequently commenced this action against the Island Medical defendants and the Hospital. The complaint alleges, in relevant part, that Walsh sought the professional care of defendants on the date in question; that defendants rendered medical care to Walsh at that time; that, in the course of rendering such care to Walsh, defendants administered to Walsh the medication at issue; that defendants did not warn Walsh of the effects of such medication; and that the accident occurred while Walsh was affected by such medication. Based on those allegations, plaintiffs seek damages for injuries they sustained as the result of defendants' alleged medical malpractice in treating Walsh.
After issue was joined, the Island Medical defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action (see CPLR 3211 [a] [7]), essentially contending that they did not owe plaintiffs a duty of care inasmuch as plaintiffs were third parties to the treatment rendered to Walsh. The Hospital cross-moved for the same relief, while plaintiffs cross-moved for an order both granting leave to serve an amended complaint asserting a cause of action for negligence and consolidating this action with two other actions arising from the subject accident. Supreme Court granted the motion of the Island Medical defendants and the cross motion of the Hospital seeking dismissal of the complaint while concomitantly denying plaintiffs' cross motion (2012 NY Slip Op 31969[U] [Sup Ct, Nassau County 2012]). On appeal, the Appellate Division affirmed, reasoning that because "only Walsh ... had a physician-patient relationship with the defendants[,] ... the allegations did not support a duty of care owed by the defendants to the injured plaintiff" (119 A.D.3d 512, 514 [2d Dept 2014]). We granted plaintiffs leave to appeal (24 N.Y.3d 905 [2014]).
Under these facts, defendants owed to plaintiffs a duty to warn Walsh that the medication administered to her either impaired or could have impaired her ability to safely operate an automobile. We begin our discussion of that issue with reference to the principles of law that inform our review.
Similarly germane is our jurisprudence with respect to the recognition of a duty of care. "The threshold question in any negligence action is ... [whether the] defendant owe[s] a legally recognized duty of care to [the] plaintiff" (Hamilton v Beretta U.S.A. Corp., 96 N.Y.2d 222, 232 [2001]). "The question of whether a member or group of society owes a duty of care to reasonably avoid injury to another is [one] of law for the courts" (Purdy v Public Adm'r of County of Westchester, 72 N.Y.2d 1, 8 [1988], rearg denied 72 N.Y.2d 953 [1988]). "Courts resolve legal duty questions by resort to common concepts of morality, logic and consideration of the social consequences of imposing the duty" (Tenuto v Lederle Labs., Div. of Am. Cyanamid Co., 90 N.Y.2d 606, 612 [1997]; see Palka v Servicemaster Mgt. Servs. Corp., 83 N.Y.2d 579, 586 [1994]). A critical consideration in determining whether a duty exists is whether "the defendant's relationship with either the tortfeasor or the plaintiff places the defendant in the best position to protect against the risk of harm" (Hamilton, 96 NY2d at 233).
Said another way, our calculus is such that we assign the responsibility of care to the person or entity that can most effectively fulfill that obligation at the lowest cost. It is against that backdrop that we conclude that, under the facts alleged, defendants owed plaintiffs a duty to warn Walsh that the medication defendants administered to Walsh impaired her ability to safely operate a motor vehicle.
In evaluating duty questions we have historically proceeded carefully and with reluctance to expand an existing duty of care. In a series of cases including Eiseman v State of New York (70 N.Y.2d 175 [1987]), Purdy (72 N.Y.2d 1), Tenuto (90 N.Y.2d 606), and McNulty v City of New York (100 N.Y.2d 227 [2003]), we declined to impose a broad duty of care extending from physicians past their patients "to members of the ... community individually" (Eiseman, 70 NY2d at 188). That is,
Specifically, in Eiseman we considered circumstances in which "an ex-felon with a history of drug abuse and criminal conduct" was released from incarceration and "accepted into a special State college program for the disadvantaged" (id. at 180). Following his acceptance into that program, the ex-felon raped and murdered a fellow student (see id.). The administrator of the decedent's estate sought recovery from the State on the ground that a prison physician negligently ignored the exfelon's emotional instability and history of mental disorder in completing an examination report. The report was submitted in conjunction with that convict's admission into the college program (see id. at 182-183). Although we concluded that "the physician plainly owed a duty of care to his patient and to persons he knew or reasonably should have known were relying on him for this service to his patient," we maintained that "[t]he physician did not ... undertake a duty to the community at large," and more specifically that the physician did not owe a duty of care to "members of the ... community individually" (id. at 188). Consequently, we determined that the State, as the employer of the physician, had no duty to inform the victim of the convict's medical history (see id. at 188-189).
About a year after deciding Eiseman, we determined Purdy (72 N.Y.2d 1). In that case the plaintiff was struck and injured by a speeding car while he patronized a gas station. The offending vehicle was operated by a resident of the defendant nursing home, who had "a medical condition that left her susceptible to fainting spells and blackouts" (id. at 6). We considered the question whether the nursing home and the defendant physician, who was merely the admitting physician at the nursing home, "owed to [the] plaintiff — an unidentified member of the public — a duty either to prevent [the resident] from driving or to warn her of the dangers of driving given her medical condition" (id.). In doing so, we acknowledged that "there exist special circumstances in which there is sufficient authority and ability to control the conduct of third persons that [have given rise to] a duty to do so" (id. at 8). More particularly, we indicated that those circumstances exist where there is a special relationship, which we described as, inter
Nevertheless, on those facts we determined that there was no "special relationship between [the] defendants and [the resident] such as would require [the defendants] to control [the resident's] conduct for the benefit of [the] plaintiff" (id.). We specifically "conclude[d] ... that neither [the nursing home] nor [the physician] had the necessary authority or ability to exercise such control over [the resident's] conduct so as to give rise to a duty on their part to protect [the] plaintiff — a member of the general public" (id. at 8-9).
After Purdy we heard Tenuto (90 N.Y.2d 606), wherein we concluded that, under the circumstances of that case, a physician had a duty of reasonable care to the parents of a five month old to whom he administered an oral polio vaccine. The physician allegedly did not advise the parents of their risk of exposure to the polio virus following the administration of that vaccine, and the plaintiff father was subsequently afflicted with that disease. Relying on both foreign authorities and Eiseman (70 NY2d at 188), we indicated that members of a patient's immediate family or household who may suffer harm as a result of the medical care a physician renders to that patient benefit from a duty of care running to them from the physician (see Tenuto, 90 NY2d at 610-614). In so concluding, we noted that there the
Tenuto was arguably constrained by our decision in McNulty (100 N.Y.2d 227).
We left open the possibility of the recognition of a duty in a case such as this through McNulty and Purdy. In McNulty, we observed that, "[i]n the limited circumstances where we have expanded the duty [of care of a treating physician so as to include a third party], the third party's injury resulted from
Our failure in Purdy to foreclose the prospect that a treating physician who does not warn a patient of the dangers of operating a motor vehicle in the face of a certain medical condition could be held accountable for that omission by a member of the general public logically left open the possibility that we could one day recognize such a duty.
This is an instance in which defendants' "relationship with... the tortfeasor ... place[d] [them] in the best position to protect against the risk of harm" (Hamilton, 96 NY2d at 233), and the balancing of factors such as the expectations of the parties and society in general, the proliferation of claims, and public policies affecting the duty proposed herein (see id. at 232) tilts in favor of establishing a duty running from defendants to plaintiffs under the facts alleged in this case.
In formulating duty,
Here, put simply, to take the affirmative step of administering the medication at issue without warning Walsh about the disorienting effect of those drugs was to create a peril affecting every motorist in Walsh's vicinity. Defendants are the only ones who could have provided a proper warning of the effects of that medication. Consequently, on the facts alleged, we conclude that defendants had a duty to plaintiffs to warn Walsh that the drugs administered to her impaired her ability to safely operate an automobile.
Our conclusion with respect to the duty owed in this case is accompanied by three observations. First, the "cost" of the duty imposed upon physicians and hospitals should be a small one: where a medical provider administers to a patient medication that impairs or could impair the patient's ability to safely operate an automobile, the medical provider need do no more than simply warn that patient of those dangers. It is already the function of a physician to advise the patient of the risks and possible side effects of prescribed medication (see Wolfgruber v Upjohn Co., 52 N.Y.2d 768, 770 [1980], affg 72 A.D.2d 59, 61 [4th Dept 1979] ["Since nonmedical consumers are legally precluded from `self-prescribing' prescription drugs, the physician's function is to evaluate a patient's needs, assess the risks and benefits of available drugs and then prescribe a drug, advising the patient of its risks and possible side effects"]; see also Martin v Hacker, 83 N.Y.2d 1, 9 [1993] [discussing the duty of a prescription drug manufacturer to caution against a drug's side effects by giving adequate warning to the prescribing physician, who "acts as an `informed intermediary' ... between the manufacturer and the patient"]). Our decision herein imposes no additional obligation on a physician who administers prescribed medication.
Second, much as we are empowered to identify the duty articulated herein, it is within our authority to clarify how that
Third, our decision herein should not be construed as an erosion of the prevailing principle that courts should proceed cautiously and carefully in recognizing a duty of care. We have previously noted that, "[w]hile the temptation is always great to provide a form of relief to one who has suffered, ... the law cannot provide a remedy for every injury incurred" (Albala v City of New York, 54 N.Y.2d 269, 274 [1981]). In other words, we have said that "[n]ot all mistakes ... result in liability" (McNulty, 100 NY2d at 232). This decision does not reflect a retreat from those principles.
We now turn to the remaining issue on appeal, which pertains to the part of plaintiffs' cross motion seeking leave to serve an amended complaint. That request was based on plaintiffs' desire to add a cause of action for negligence against defendants based on plaintiffs' theory that defendants negligently caused Walsh to become "medically intoxicated and cognitively impaired," and that Walsh caused the accident because of that impairment.
As a general rule, "leave to amend a pleading should be freely granted in the absence of prejudice to the nonmoving party where the amendment is not patently lacking in merit..., and the decision whether to grant leave to amend a complaint is committed to the sound discretion of the court" (Pink v Ricci, 100 A.D.3d 1446, 1448 [4th Dept 2012] [internal quotation marks omitted]; see CPLR 3025 [b]; Edenwald Contr. Co. v City of New York, 60 N.Y.2d 957, 959 [1983]). "A complaint sounds in medical malpractice rather than ordinary negligence where the challenged conduct constitutes medical treatment or bears a substantial relationship to the rendition of medical treatment by a licensed physician to a particular patient" (1B NY PJI3d 2:150 at 47 [2015]; see Weiner v Lenox Hill Hosp., 88 N.Y.2d 784, 788 [1996] ["(A) claim sounds in medical malpractice when the challenged conduct constitutes medical treatment or
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be modified, without costs, by denying the motions of the Island Medical defendants and the Hospital to dismiss the complaint and, as so modified, affirmed.
STEIN, J. (dissenting).
The majority precipitously holds that medical professionals working in a hospital emergency room owe a duty of care to a non-patient member of the general public, requiring medical professionals who administer medication that may affect a patient's driving ability to warn the patient — for the benefit of a third-party motorist — that he or she should not operate a motor vehicle upon discharge. Because I vehemently disagree that a duty running from a physician to a non-patient should be recognized under the circumstances presented here, I would reaffirm our long-standing precedent holding that a physician's duty of care does not extend beyond the patient to the community at large, a result that is, I believe, mandated by any considered weighing of the societal interests involved. I, therefore, dissent.
I will begin with a recitation of the facts giving rise to this action as recounted in the complaint — which must be accepted
Walsh was discharged, and she left the Hospital at 12:30 p.m., over one hour after the administration of Dilaudid and Ativan. Shortly thereafter, Walsh crossed a double yellow line while operating her vehicle, striking an oncoming bus driven by plaintiff Edwin Davis. In a subsequent action commenced by Walsh against defendants Hammock, DeLuca, and the Hospital, Walsh claimed that the medications she was administered rendered her "unconscious for a period of time" and caused or contributed to the accident.
Thereafter, Davis — and his wife, derivatively — commenced the instant action to recover damages for Davis's personal injuries, asserting causes of action sounding in medical malpractice and negligent hiring and training of medical personnel against Hammock, DeLuca, and Island Medical Physicians, P.C. (collectively the Island Medical defendants), as well as the Hospital. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants committed medical malpractice by releasing Walsh from the Hospital "in severe pain, [in] a state of disorientation, under the influence of the [administered drugs]" and without providing proper instructions or "arranging her a safe method of travel home."
Supreme Court, as relevant here, granted defendants' motions to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, and denied that branch of plaintiffs' cross motion that sought leave to amend the complaint to add a negligence claim (2012 NY Slip Op 31969[U] [Sup Ct, Nassau County 2012]). The court concluded that there was no basis for the proposed amendment because there was no duty running from defendants to non-patient Davis. The Appellate Division affirmed (119 A.D.3d 512, 513 [2d Dept 2014]), and we subsequently granted plaintiffs leave to appeal (24 N.Y.3d 905 [2014]).
As the majority recognizes, the threshold issue in any negligence or malpractice action is whether the defendant owed the plaintiff a legally recognized duty of care (see McNulty v City of New York, 100 N.Y.2d 227, 232 [2003]; Hamilton v Beretta U.S.A. Corp., 96 N.Y.2d 222, 232-233 [2001]). The question of whether and to whom a duty is owed "is a legal one for the courts to resolve, taking into account `common concepts of morality, logic and consideration of the social consequences of imposing the duty'" (McNulty, 100 NY2d at 232, quoting Tenuto v Lederle Labs., Div. of Am. Cyanamid Co., 90 N.Y.2d 606, 612 [1997]). When conducting this analysis, "[d]espite often sympathetic facts in a particular case before them, courts must be mindful of the precedential, and consequential, future effects of their rulings, and `limit the legal consequences of wrongs to a controllable degree'" (Lauer v City of New York, 95 N.Y.2d 95, 100 [2000], quoting Tobin v Grossman, 24 N.Y.2d 609, 619 [1969]).
We have repeatedly emphasized that the "foreseeability of harm does not define duty" (532 Madison Ave. Gourmet Foods
Plaintiffs assert, and the majority concludes, that recognition of a duty under the circumstances here is merely an extension of our existing precedent concerning the scope of a physician's duty. I disagree. To the contrary, our case law compels the conclusion that defendants owed Davis no duty of care to warn Walsh against, or prevent her from, driving because Davis was an unidentified and unknown stranger to defendants' physician-patient relationship with Walsh.
In Eiseman v State of New York, a prison physician completed a health form required for an inmate to be admitted into a college program upon his release from incarceration (70 NY2d at 187). The physician failed to note that the inmate had a history of addiction and mental illness and, after acceptance and enrollment at the college, the inmate committed heinous crimes against several of his peers (see id. at 180-183). In the subsequent negligence action, we acknowledged that, although the relevant form did not require the physician to disclose the inmate's history, in completing the form, the physician nevertheless "owed a duty of care to his patient and to persons he knew or reasonably should have known were relying on him for this service to his patient" — i.e., the college (id. at 188 [emphasis added]). Yet, in recognizing the possibility that a limited duty might be owed by a physician to a non-patient, we held that the physician did not "undertake a duty to the community at large," and we were careful to limit the object of
The following year, in Purdy v Public Adm'r of County of Westchester, this Court was presented with the question of whether defendants, a health-related living facility and its admitting physician, owed a duty to a member of the public requiring them to prevent a resident — 73-year-old Emily Shaw, who had a medical condition that made her susceptible to fainting and blackouts — from, or warn her against, driving (72 N.Y.2d 1, 6 [1988]). We recognized in Purdy that "there exist special circumstances in which there is sufficient authority and ability to control the conduct of third persons that we have identified a duty to do so," such as where there is a "relationship between [the] defendant and a third person whose actions expose [the] plaintiff to harm such as would require the defendant to attempt to control the third person's conduct; or a relationship between the defendant and plaintiff requiring [the] defendant to protect the plaintiff from the conduct of others" (id. at 8). However, we held that the defendants in Purdy had no duty to the plaintiff third party to prevent Shaw from driving because the facility and physician lacked "the necessary authority or ability to exercise ... control over Shaw's conduct so as to give rise to a duty on their part to protect [the] plaintiff — a member of the general public" (id. at 8-9). With respect to the plaintiff's duty to warn theory, we acknowledged that other jurisdictions have held that a treating physician's relationship to a patient could be sufficient to impose a duty running to members of the public to warn the patient of the adverse effects of medication on the ability to drive. However, we noted that, in New York, "[a] physician's duty of care is ordinarily one owed to his or her patient" and not to the community at large (id. at 9-10). In any event, because the defendant physician was not Shaw's treating physician and there was no evidence that any medication prescribed by the physician contributed to the accident, we held that no duty was established.
By contrast, in Tenuto v Lederle Labs., Div. of Am. Cyanamid Co., we concluded that a special relationship existed
We also explained that a duty was cognizable under those circumstances because the physician's treatment "necessarily implicate[d] protection of household members or other identified persons foreseeably at risk because of a relationship with the patient, whom the doctor [knew] or should [have] know[n] may [have] suffer[ed] harm by relying on prudent performance of that medical service" (id. [emphasis added]). In other words, we recognized a duty in Tenuto only because the plaintiffs there were "within a determinate and identified class — immediate family members — whose relationships to the person acted upon have traditionally been recognized as a means of extending and yet limiting the scope of liability for injuries caused by a party's negligent acts or omissions" (id. at 614 [emphasis added]). Because there was a special relationship "triangulated" between the plaintiffs, the physician, and the patient in light
To the extent, if any, that our decision in Tenuto could be read to permit the expansion of a physician's duty to a member of the general public, we clarified the limits of our holding a few years later, in McNulty v City of New York (100 NY2d at 227). In McNulty, the Court refused to extend a physician's duty to the friend of a patient being treated for contagious meningitis, even though the friend accompanied the patient to the hospital and directly inquired of two physicians whether she was at risk and should be treated in light of her close contact with the patient. In so holding, we clarified — again — that our holding in Tenuto was a very narrow one that relied on the special relationship between the parties and the physician's awareness of the parents' reliance on his services to the infant patient, combined with the fact that the physician's treatment created the risk of harm (see id. at 233). We cautioned that, in the absence of such a convergence of factors, New York courts should be "reluctant to expand a doctor's duty of care to a patient to encompass nonpatients," in part due to the "critical concern ... that a recognition of a duty would render doctors liable to a prohibitive number of possible plaintiffs" (id. at 232).
The rule of law that emerges from this line of cases is easily discerned. In New York, a physician's duty to a patient, and the corresponding liability, may be extended beyond the patient only to someone who is both a readily identifiable third party of a definable class, usually a family member, and a person who the physician knew or should have known could be injured by the physician's affirmative creation of a risk of harm through his or her treatment of the patient (see McNulty, 100 NY2d at 233-234; Cohen v Cabrini Med. Ctr., 94 N.Y.2d 639, 642-644 [2000]; Eiseman, 70 NY2d at 188). I am not aware of anything — and the majority makes no attempt to identify anything — indicating that this clear rule has become so unworkable that the significant redefinition of the scope of a physician's duty adopted by the majority is warranted. Under a reasoned application of our precedent to the facts of this case, it is evident that defendants owed no legal duty to Davis — or any other member of the public who may have come
The majority's contrary conclusion and imposition of a duty to warn Walsh for the benefit of Davis and other motorists is inimical to the principles enunciated in Purdy, Eiseman, Tenuto, and McNulty because, while defendants arguably created a risk of harm by affirmatively giving Walsh medications that impaired her ability to drive, Davis is not a member of an identifiable and readily limited class.
Ultimately, by imposing liability here, the majority eviscerates the precept that a physician generally owes a duty of care only to the patient, not to the community at large. The majority justifies its otherwise unsupportable position by pointing out that the harm to Davis here was foreseeable (which, as set forth above, is not dispositive) and by asserting that "our calculus is such that we assign the responsibility of care to the person or entity that can most effectively fulfill that obligation at the lowest cost" (majority op at 572). While it is true that we have stated in other contexts that a "`key' consideration critical
Even if I were able to accept the premise that a logically defined duty could be extended to a non-patient third party under our prior decisions, this Court is obligated to balance certain relevant factors before making such a determination. These factors include "the reasonable expectations of parties and society generally, the proliferation of claims, the likelihood of unlimited or insurer-like liability, disproportionate risk and reparation allocation, and public policies affecting the expansion or limitation of new channels of liability" (Palka v Service-master
First, the extension of a duty under the circumstances presented here does not conform with the expectations of the parties or of society in general. Until now, it was unlikely that physicians would have expected to be held accountable to members of the community at large for decisions arising out of their treatment of an individual patient. This is because the duty of care owed to a patient arises out of the personal, private, and individualized relationship between the two parties. By contrast, physicians have no relationship with unidentified members of the public and cannot foresee or predict with whom their patients will come into contact. In addition, while patients certainly expect their medical providers to properly advise them of the risks and side effects associated with medications that are administered to them, patients have no reason to expect that their doctor's advice to them could give rise to a cause of action against the physician in favor of a person with whom neither the physician nor the patient had prior contact. Thus, this factor of the duty analysis militates against the finding of a duty.
Second, it is indisputable that a medical professional who administers medication that is likely to impair a patient's ability to drive owes a duty of care to the patient that may require the medical professional to warn the patient of potential risks and side effects of the medication, including advice regarding whether it is safe for the patient to operate a motor vehicle (see generally Nestorowich v Ricotta, 97 N.Y.2d 393, 398 [2002]; Wolfgruber v Upjohn Co., 72 A.D.2d 59, 61 [4th Dept 1979], affd 52 N.Y.2d 768 [1980]). It is precisely because the physician already
Third, while the majority's departure from our precedent yields no appreciable benefit, the extension of a physician's duty to warn a patient to a third party comes at a heavy cost, both financially and socially. As for the latter, in my view, it is readily foreseeable that the imposition of a duty and the corresponding expansion of liability to include non-patients will adversely interfere with the physician-patient relationship. It can hardly be disputed that, as this Court has previously stated, the relationship between a physician and patient "operates and flourishes in an atmosphere of transcendent trust and confidence and is infused with fiduciary obligations" (Aufrichtig v Lowell, 85 N.Y.2d 540, 546 [1995]). As a fiduciary, a physician generally owes a duty of undivided loyalty to the patient, and the paramount consideration in a physician's course of treatment must, therefore, be the patient's health and well-being. Although a physician has a duty, generally, to warn patients of the potential for a medication to, among other things, interfere with driving ability, the physician's decision in specific situations regarding which side effects to explain or warnings to give with particular medications is, undoubtedly, one that is made in the exercise of professional judgment, based on the physician's weighing of the likelihood of danger or quantum of risk and a determination of the individual patient's interests. Extending a physician's duty beyond the patient to a boundless pool of potential plaintiffs creates a very real risk that a physician will be conflicted when deciding whether, and to what extent, medication should be administered and under what circumstances specific warnings should be issued. In my view,
For example, a physician may become overly cautious in prescribing necessary medications so as to avoid potential liability. Similarly, instead of giving only those warnings a physician truly believes to be warranted in a particular case, the physician may inundate a patient with excessive detail about potential, but unlikely, risks associated with a medication in order to insulate him- or herself from liability, thus distracting the patient from the most significant risks and side effects. Worse yet, these warnings may devolve into a general practice of physicians handing out pro forma lists of potential side effects that patients will cursorily sign prior to the administration of medications, ultimately resulting in fewer educated patients and less informed consent. While a physician may be ethically bound to refrain from allowing considerations of liability to influence his or her treatment decisions, it is naive, at best, to assume that the immeasurable liability that will result from the imposition of a duty owing to countless non-patients will have no impact upon a physician's exercise of professional judgment.
The duty adopted by the majority also implicates concerns regarding physician-patient confidentiality (see CPLR 4504; Education Law § 6530) and, in my view, is unworkable on a practical level. For instance, where a patient who was administered medication without a warning against driving defaults in a legal action brought by an injured third party, or decides not to shift blame to the physician, the physician-patient privilege would bar disclosure to the injured party of the patient's medical
Fourth, the expansion of a physician's liability to include all members of the public injured by a patient's operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of medication will likely have a substantial financial impact on the medical profession and the availability of competent medical care throughout the state. Where, as here, "recognition of a duty would render doctors liable to a prohibitive number of possible plaintiffs" (McNulty, 100 NY2d at 232), such a duty will assuredly affect the cost and availability of medical care, as physicians will face an influx of litigation and rising malpractice insurance premiums. Injured non-patients will have every incentive to pursue litigation against physicians due to the availability of insurance coverage and, even if the majority of physicians successfully defeat such claims by demonstrating compliance with their already-existing duty to warn a patient where such a warning is warranted, the added cost of entering into litigation of these claims, either through summary judgment motions or trial, will take its toll.
Moreover, scenarios implicating a physician's duty of care owed to members of the general public regarding his or her treatment of patients are endless, and the majority's finding of a duty here presents a slippery slope, at the bottom of which a
Finally, plaintiffs lament that it is unfair to allow Walsh to recover against defendants for her own injuries if they failed to warn her not to drive, while concomitantly precluding Davis from obtaining the same recovery for his injuries. However, there is nothing inconsistent about allowing a patient, but not a stranger, to recover against a medical professional for a negligent failure to warn the patient. "Any conclusion regarding inconsistent outcomes must involve a comparison between two parties that stand in the same relationship to another party, and patients and injured third persons do not stand in the same relationship to health care providers" (Jarmie, 306 Conn at 600-601, 50 A3d at 815 [emphasis omitted]). Moreover, in almost all instances in which courts are asked to establish a duty, the courts must draw the line somewhere. As former Chief Judge Kaye eloquently stated,
Although I am sympathetic to plaintiffs and "it may seem that there should be a remedy for every wrong, this is an ideal limited perforce by the realities of this world" (Tobin v Grossman, 24 NY2d at 619; see Albala v City of New York, 54 N.Y.2d 269, 274 [1981]). For, "[a] line must be drawn between the competing policy considerations of providing a remedy to everyone who is injured and of extending exposure to tort liability almost without limit" (De Angelis v Lutheran Med. Ctr., 58 N.Y.2d 1053, 1055 [1983]). To extend the duty here is to subject physicians to potentially crushing liability attenuated from the common expectations of all involved.
In addition, in many cases, motorists who are injured as a result of a physician's negligent failure to warn a patient of the possible side effects from the administration of medication are not entirely without recompense because they may be covered by their own motor vehicle or health insurance, or can pursue recovery against the patient/driver who directly caused the injury. While an injured party may occasionally be deprived of compensation by the absence of a duty in scenarios like the one here, I cannot agree with the majority that the possible benefits to be gained by creating a liability owing from physicians to every person who might potentially be injured by a patient — benefits which are not identified by the majority — outweigh the costs.
For all these reasons, I would decline to extend a physician's duty to warn a patient about the effects of medication on his or her driving ability, beyond the duty already owed to the patient, to the community at large. My conclusion is consistent with, and compelled by, our precedent cautioning against the expansion of a physician's scope of liability, which confines a physician's duty to patients and specifically-identified persons who the doctor knows or has reason to know are relying upon the patient's treatment and who are harmed by the physician's affirmative creation of a risk. Adherence to this rule and our prior case law is necessary to avoid the imposition of a duty in cases like this, where the absence of a definable class of potential plaintiffs opens the door to limitless liability that will unduly interfere with the physician-patient relationship and increase the costs of medical care throughout the state, all
Chief Judge LIPPMAN and Judges PIGOTT and RIVERA concur; Judge STEIN dissents and votes to affirm in an opinion in which Judge ABDUS-SALAAM concurs.
Order modified, without costs, by denying the motions of the Island Medical Physicians, P.C. defendants and of defendant South Nassau Communities Hospital to dismiss the complaint and, as so modified, affirmed.
For example, in D'Amico v Christie (71 N.Y.2d 76 [1987]) we reiterated the rule that landowners "have a duty to control the conduct of third persons on their premises when they have the opportunity to control such persons and are reasonably aware of the need for such control" (id. at 85). Through that opinion we decided two appeals — D'Amico and Henry v Vann — and the second of those appeals arose from circumstances in which an employer detected an intoxicated employee, fired the employee, and told the employee to leave the employer's premises, whereupon the dismissed employee drove approximately one-half mile away before colliding with an oncoming vehicle (Henry, 71 NY2d at 82). On those facts we concluded that the employer had no legal duty to control the terminated employee's conduct (id. at 89).
Similarly, in Martino v Stolzman (18 N.Y.3d 905 [2012]), we applied the foregoing principles of D'Amico to social hosts, ruling that such hosts owe no duty to protect third persons from a guest who becomes intoxicated on and then drives from a premises controlled by the hosts (id. at 908). Careful, too, was our approach in Stiver v Good & Fair Carting & Moving, Inc. (9 N.Y.3d 253 [2007]), in which we concluded that the inspector of a motor vehicle involved in an accident attributable to the mechanical failure of that vehicle has no duty to third parties to properly inspect that automobile (see id. at 255-257). We were likewise circumspect in Hamilton (96 N.Y.2d 222), wherein we concluded that the defendant handgun manufacturers did not owe "a duty [to the plaintiffs, who were relatives of people killed by handguns,] to exercise reasonable care in the marketing and distribution of the handguns they manufacture" (id. at 230-231).
Moreover, our own canvas has revealed that at least eight other jurisdictions appear to have recognized a duty running from a physician past his or her patient to the general public to warn the patient of the possible adverse effects of medication administered or treatment rendered to the patient by the physician (see Medina v Hochberg, 465 Mass. 102, 107-108, 987 N.E.2d 1206, 1211 [2013] [acknowledging that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts had previously "concluded that a physician may be liable to a third party for failing to warn his or her patient of the known side effects of medication prescribed by the physician that might affect the patient's ability to drive a motor vehicle"]; Hardee v Bio-Medical Applications of South Carolina, Inc., 370 S.C. 511, 516, 636 S.E.2d 629, 631-632 [2006] ["a medical provider who provides treatment which it knows may have detrimental effects on a patient's capacities and abilities owes a duty to prevent harm to patients and to reasonably foreseeable third parties by warning the patient of the attendant risks and effects before administering the treatment"]; Burroughs v Magee, 118 S.W.3d 323, 333 [Tenn 2003] [holding, under the facts of that case, that the defendant physician "owed a duty of care (to third-party motorists) to warn (a patient of the physician) of the possible adverse effect of ... two prescribed drugs on (the patient's) ability to safely operate a motor vehicle"]; Hoehn v United States, 217 F.Supp.2d 39, 41, 48-49 [D DC 2002] [deeming viable a claim that "a hospital or physician owe(s) a duty to the general public ... to (warn) a heavily medicated patient ... about the danger of driving"]; Osborne v United States, 211 W.Va. 667, 669, 567 S.E.2d 677, 679 [2002] [recognizing that West Virginia law permits a third party to bring a cause of action against a health care provider for foreseeable injuries that were proximately caused by the health care provider's negligent treatment of a tortfeasor patient]; Cram v Howell, 680 N.E.2d 1096, 1097-1098 [Ind 1997] [concluding the defendant physician had "a duty of care to take reasonable precautions in monitoring, releasing, and warning his patient for the protection of unknown third persons potentially jeopardized by the patient's driving upon leaving the physician's office" where the physician allegedly administered to the patient certain immunizations or vaccinations that caused the patient to experience "episodes of loss of consciousness"]; Myers v Quesenberry, 144 Cal.App.3d 888, 890, 894, 193 Cal.Rptr. 733, 733, 736 [4th Dist 1983] [observing, in the context of concluding that "liability may be imposed against two physicians for negligently failing to warn their patient of the foreseeable and dangerous consequences of engaging in certain conduct which proximately caused injuries to (the) plaintiff, a third person," that "(w)hen a physician furnishes medicine causing drowsiness, he should warn his patient not to drive or engage in other activities which are likely to cause injury"]; Kaiser v Suburban Transp. Sys., 65 Wn.2d 461, 464, 398 P.2d 14, 16 [1965] [concluding that the question whether the defendant doctor was negligent in failing to warn the patient bus driver that a prescribed drug could cause drowsiness was for a trier of fact], mod on other grounds 65 Wn.2d 461, 401 P.2d 350 [1965]). We note, however, that our decision herein is not grounded in those foreign authorities inasmuch as our result is the product not of "vote counting" but of our independent balancing of factors including the expectations of the parties and of society, the proliferation of claims, and public policies affecting the duty we now recognize (see Hamilton, 96 NY2d at 232).