Maltais v. PeaceHealth ( 2023 )

318 June 14, 2023 No. 294
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
STATE OF OREGON
Valerie MALTAIS
and David Richardson,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
PEACEHEALTH,
a Washington nonprofit corporation,
dba PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical
Center at RiverBend, and
Sarah L. Coleman, MD,
Defendants-Respondents.
Lane County Circuit Court
19CV27100; A174706
R. Curtis Conover, Judge.
Argued and submitted June 2, 2022.
Gregory Kafoury argued the cause for appellants. Also
on the briefs was Kafoury & McDougal.
Ruth A. Casby argued the cause for respondent
PeaceHealth Corp - Sacred Heart Medical Center. Also on
the brief were Janet M. Schroer and Hart Wagner LLP.
Hillary A. Taylor argued the cause and filed the brief for
respondent Sarah L. Coleman, MD.
Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, and Powers, Judge, and
Hellman, Judge.
ORTEGA, P. J.
Reversed and remanded.
Cite as 326 Or App 318 (2023) 319
320 Maltais v. PeaceHealth
ORTEGA, P. J.
Plaintiffs Valerie Maltais and David Richardson,
her husband, appeal a judgment dismissing their claims
for negligence against defendants PeaceHealth and Sarah
L. Coleman, MD. Defendants were medical service provid-
ers for Maltais’s adult son, N. H., who suffers from paranoid
schizophrenia and severe intellectual disabilities. In her
claims, Maltais alleges that she suffered a physical injury
and noneconomic damages as a result of defendants’ negli-
gent handling of N. H.’s deteriorating psychiatric condition,
leading to a psychotic episode during which N. H. stabbed
Maltais, puncturing her lung. Richardson alleges that he
suffered noneconomic damages for loss of spousal consor-
tium and emotional distress as a result of witnessing the
attack.
On appeal, plaintiffs contend that the trial court
erred in granting judgment on the pleadings for failure to
state a claim under former ORCP 21 A(8) (2018), renum-
bered as ORCP 21 A(a)(h) (2022), on the basis that defen-
dants owed no duty to the nonpatient plaintiffs. We conclude
that, if proven, the facts alleged in the complaint support
a reasonable inference that defendants owed a duty of care
that extended to Maltais. As such, we do not reach plain-
tiffs’ alternative argument that the court erred in failing to
give plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint. Accordingly,
we reverse the trial court’s dismissal of the complaint with
prejudice and remand for further proceedings.1
I. BACKGROUND
In reviewing a judgment dismissing a complaint, we
accept as true the facts alleged in the complaint and draw
all reasonable inferences from those allegations in favor of
plaintiffs. Tomlinson v. Metropolitan Pediatrics, LLC, 362
Or 431, 434, 412 P3d 133 (2018). Our task is to “determine
whether upon the facts alleged * * * no reasonable factfinder
could decide one or more elements of liability” in favor of
plaintiffs. Fazzolari v. Portland School Dist. No. 1J, 303 Or
1, 17, 734 P2d 1326 (1987). The alleged facts are as follows.
1
We do not address Richardson’s claims because the parties and the court
treated those claims as derivative of Maltais’s claims.
Cite as 326 Or App 318 (2023) 321
Maltais is the biological mother of N. H., an adult
who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and severe intel-
lectual disabilities. N. H. lived in the family home with
Maltais and Richardson. He was “profoundly disabled” by
his conditions and Maltais was his primary caregiver. She
managed his medical care and accompanied him to his med-
ical visits, including visits with his psychiatrist and other
medical providers at PeaceHealth, for many years. She was
responsible for communicating necessary medical infor-
mation to providers and was authorized to receive medical
information concerning N. H.
N. H.’s psychiatric condition deteriorated in January
2018. He began to exhibit severe and uncharacteristic symp-
toms, including hearing voices. He feared that he was losing
control of himself and that he would harm himself and his
family; specifically, he felt driven to stab his family members
with a knife. Concerned that N. H. had become dangerous,
Maltais took him to PeaceHealth’s Emergency Department
(ED) on January 28, 2018. Hospital staff interviewed N. H.
and released him.
The following day, January 29, Maltais took N. H. to
his regular psychiatrist at PeaceHealth, Carolyn Hartman,
MD. Maltais explained the symptoms that N. H. was expe-
riencing, and told Hartman about their visit to the ED.
Hartman evaluated N. H.’s condition and noted in his chart,
“Due to active psychosis and recent threats, dangerousness
is clear.”
On January 30, Hartman communicated to Maltais
that she would inform the ED that N. H. needed to be admit-
ted because he was a danger to himself and others. Hartman
then called an intake worker and a crisis worker at the ED
and reported that N. H. was her patient, that he was coming
to the ED, and that he should be admitted. Next, Hartman
spoke to an ED doctor and explained that N. H. wanted to
be admitted and that admission was appropriate because he
was dangerous to himself and others. The ED staff mem-
bers agreed that they would admit N. H. when he arrived.
Later that day, Maltais again took N. H. to the ED.
However, there had been a shift change since Hartman’s
calls. The ED staff, including defendant Coleman, did not
322 Maltais v. PeaceHealth
admit N. H. and, that same day and in Richardson’s pres-
ence, N. H. stabbed Maltais with a knife, puncturing her
lung.
Plaintiffs allege that defendants PeaceHealth and
Coleman were negligent:
“(a) In failing to restrain, admit, or secure [N. H.],
when they knew or had reason to know that he was men-
tally ill and a danger to himself or others;
“(b) In failing to convey the decision to admit [N. H.] to
a responsible medical staff at the change of shift;
“(c) In failing to adequately document the decision to
admit [N. H.];
“(d) In failing to actively review available medical
documentation, including * * * Hartman’s records, prior to
declining to admit [N. H.];
“(e) In failing to secure available information regard-
ing [N. H.]’s mental status and risk from * * * Maltais when
she was present and available to be interviewed;
“(f) In failing to devise an adequate system for con-
veying recently-received medical information from practi-
tioners during one shift to practitioners in the next shift;
“(g) In refusing to allow * * * Maltais to be present
while her son was interviewed.”
Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, argu-
ing that they did not cause Maltais’s injuries and that the
lack of a physician-patient or other special relationship
between the parties was fatal to plaintiffs’ claims. Plaintiffs
maintained that the claims were cognizable under a theory
that defendants’ conduct unreasonably created a foreseeable
risk of physical harm to others and that they were therefore
liable for the resulting injuries. Defendants responded that
Tomlinson controls the analysis for third-party medical neg-
ligence claims such that plaintiffs must have alleged inde-
pendent interests that defendants were obligated to protect
to allege that a duty runs from defendants to plaintiffs. The
trial court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the com-
plaint with leave to replead facts that would demonstrate
that defendant owed a duty to plaintiffs.
Cite as 326 Or App 318 (2023) 323
Plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint, add-
ing a lengthy paragraph detailing the relationship between
Maltais, N. H., and his medical providers.2 It describes
her history of participating in his medical and psychiat-
ric appointments at PeaceHealth and her role in commu-
nicating medical information to providers about his care.
Plaintiffs alleged that Maltais performed that role because
N. H.’s disabilities made him dependent on her. Defendants
then renewed their arguments that the complaint was
legally insufficient because plaintiffs did not meet the stan-
dard articulated in Tomlinson to state a third-party med-
ical negligence claim, that is, that the complaint failed to
allege facts showing that defendants had a duty that ran
to plaintiffs. The trial court dismissed that complaint with
prejudice.
Plaintiffs appeal, assigning error to the trial court’s
dismissal of their claims with prejudice, arguing once again
that medical providers can be liable for foreseeable physical
injuries to third parties resulting from the negligent treat-
ment of their patients.
II. ANALYSIS
Under Oregon law, a person whose conduct unreason-
ably creates a foreseeable risk of harm to others and causes
an injury is generally liable for that injury, “unless the par-
ties invoke a status, a relationship, or a particular standard
of conduct that creates, defines, or limits the defendant’s
duty.” Fazzolari, 303 Or at 17. Here, the negligent conduct
alleged is defendants’ failure to diagnose N. H.’s psychiat-
ric condition and dangerousness, and their failure to admit,
secure, or restrain him. In defending against these claims,
defendants invoke the doctor-patient relationship and the
professional standard of conduct that structures their
2
Although this paragraph describes facts about the relationship between
the parties that are relevant to all of plaintiffs’ claims, the second amended com-
plaint locates it between plaintiffs’ first and second claims for relief with a sec-
tion title stating that it is another second claim for relief, though no claim for
damages is alleged in that section. For the purposes of this opinion, we treat this
as an editing error and read it as a factual allegation that is relevant to the four
claims alleged in the complaint. Defendants do not argue before this court that
their substantial rights were affected by this defect in the pleading. ORCP 12;
Hawkins v. City of La Grande, 315 Or 57, 63, 843 P2d 400 (1992).
324 Maltais v. PeaceHealth
duties. They argue that plaintiffs’ claims are not cogniza-
ble because their professional duty of care was owed only to
their patient and not to third-party plaintiffs.
The Supreme Court recently articulated the profes-
sional standard of care for physicians in Tomlinson:
“When a physician holds herself out as such and under-
takes to provide medical services, the physician represents
having a certain level of medical skill and competence * * *.
In doing so, the physician invites a patient (or others acting
to advance the patient’s interests) to rely on the physician
to provide the patient with the level of care that a reason-
ably prudent, careful, and skillful practitioner of the physi-
cian’s discipline would have provided to the patient under
the same or similar circumstances and within the same
community. The law therefore imposes on a physician an
obligation to meet that standard of care, which is defined
by the scope of the physician’s undertaking.”
362 Or at 444 (citations omitted). The Tomlinson court
explained further that this standard of care does not func-
tion to limit a physician’s professional duty to just their
patients. As in other professional settings, whether a phy-
sician has a duty that runs to a nonpatient third party
depends on “the existence of an undertaking, express or
implied, between the [professional] and the third party.”
Id. at 445. We therefore turn to the reasoning in Tomlinson
to guide our analysis of plaintiffs’ claims.
In that case, the plaintiffs were the parents of a
child who began exhibiting developmental abnormalities.
The defendants, the child’s medical providers, undertook to
discover the cause of those abnormalities but failed to do so
before the plaintiffs had another child. The older child was
ultimately diagnosed with an inheritable genetic disorder
with severe and potentially debilitating symptoms. The par-
ents alleged that the defendants negligently failed to per-
form appropriate diagnostic testing for the child’s symptoms
and therefore failed to timely diagnose the genetic disorder.
As a result, the defendants also failed to timely inform the
parents of their own reproductive risks as carriers of the
defective gene. The parents sought economic damages for,
among other things, the cost of medical care for their second
Cite as 326 Or App 318 (2023) 325
child who was also born with the condition, as well as non-
economic damages for emotional distress. Id. at 435.
Plaintiffs correctly point out that the injuries
alleged in Tomlinson were economic and emotional and, on
that basis, argue that the analysis does not apply in a case
such as this one where a third-party plaintiff suffered a
physical injury. They focus their arguments on lines of rea-
soning that we do not find persuasive.3
3
Plaintiffs first argue that their claims may proceed under a common-law
foreseeability analysis, whereby a physician may be liable to third parties when
their negligent treatment of patients creates a foreseeable risk of physical injury
to those third parties. See Horton v. OHSU, 277 Or App 821, 373 P3d 1158 (2016)
(reversing dismissal of a mother’s claims for injuries resulting when she donated
a portion of her liver to save her child as a foreseeable result of negligently per-
formed liver surgery, holding that the mother’s claims were not foreclosed by the
absence of a physician-patient relationship between herself and the defendant
medical providers); Zavalas v. Dept. of Corrections, 124 Or App 166, 861 P2d 1026(1993), rev den, 319 Or 150 (1994) (reversing an award of summary judgment to
the defendant doctor and rejecting his arguments that a physician has no duty to
third parties harmed as a foreseeable result of negligent treatment of a patient);
Docken v. Ciba-Geigy, 86 Or App 277, 739 P2d 591 (1987), rev den, 304 Or 405(1987) (reversing dismissal of claims brought by the estate of patient’s brother
against prescribing physician, pharmacy, and drug manufacturer, holding that
his claims for the fatal injury he suffered as a result of ingesting his brother’s
medication were not foreclosed by the absence of physician-patient relationship
between himself and the defendants). The difficulty with this line of reasoning
is that, at common law, there is no duty to protect another from the conduct of a
third party in the absence of a relationship creating such a duty. See generally
Restatement (Third) of Torts: Phys. & Emot. Harm § 37 (2012). The cases cited by
plaintiffs do not establish the existence of a general rule under Oregon law that
a physician or medical provider is liable any time its actions create a foreseeable
risk of injury to any third party.
Relying on Cain v. Rijken, 300 Or 706, 717 P2d 140 (1986), and ORS 426.232,
plaintiffs also argue that defendants have a statutory duty to protect the public
from persons with mental illness who are dangerous to others. The statutory duty
in Cain was based on the defendants’ supervisory authority over Rijken who had
been put under the jurisdiction of the Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB)
and conditionally released under the supervision of Providence Medical Center.
That “obligation to supervise Rijken’s conduct for the protection of the public”
was “derived from the statutes defining the assignment Providence undertook for
PSRB.” Id. at 717; ORS 161.336; ORS 161.390(3). The court opted to create a private
right of action to enforce that duty even though the legislature neither expressly
nor impliedly created such a right. Doyle v. City of Medford, 356 Or 336, 350, 337
P3d 797 (2014). The statutory scheme laid out in ORS chapter 426 is not analo-
gous insofar as it does not create an obligation for private practitioners to exercise
that heightened level of supervision over a person. Furthermore, it specifically con-
fers immunity from liability to practitioners exercising the powers granted under
that chapter. See ORS 426.335(5) (“A licensed independent practitioner, hospital
or judge may not be held criminally or civilly liable for actions pursuant to ORS
426.228, 426.231, 426.232, 426.234 or 426.235 if the licensed independent practi-
tioner, hospital or judge acts in good faith, on probable cause and without malice.”).
326 Maltais v. PeaceHealth
For purposes of this case, we use Tomlinson as a
guide for our analysis of the duty owed to plaintiffs for two
reasons. First, in Tomlinson, the Supreme Court applied
its analysis in the context of an alleged failure to protect
the parents from a risk of harm that the defendants did not
themselves create. The injuries in that case were a result of
reproductive risks associated with the parents’ preexisting
genetic condition and the failure of the defendants to diag-
nose that condition in their child. Id. at 442-43. Similarly,
Maltais suffered an injury that resulted from risks posed
by N. H.’s preexisting psychiatric condition and defendants’
alleged failure to appropriately assess that condition. See
id. at 460 n 15. Second, the test for whether the breach of a
duty can give rise to liability for a physical injury suffered
by a third party should be no more demanding than the test
that applies to a third-party claim for economic and emo-
tional harms as described in Tomlinson; put another way,
the test for economic and emotional harms might well be
more demanding than that for physical injuries, see id. at
443 (“without some justification for providing legal protec-
tion, a person is not generally required to affirmatively pro-
tect the economic and emotional interests of others”), but, in
any event, the test would not be less demanding. Because we
ultimately conclude that plaintiffs have met that test, it is
an appropriate measure to use in this case.
Tomlinson explains that the relationship between
a professional and third parties who are not their clients
may, in appropriate circumstances, support that third par-
ty’s negligence claim:
“[I]n carrying out a professional obligation to a client,
the professional may be required to protect the interests
of a third party as well. In such circumstances, the pro-
fessional’s relationship with a client not only gives rise to
an obligation to protect the interests of the client, but it
also can give rise to an obligation to protect the interests
of a third party. The facts of particular cases will deter-
mine what interests and what third parties receive such
protection.”
362 Or at 445. Such a determination will be made “on a case-
by-case basis” and the court identified three considerations
Cite as 326 Or App 318 (2023) 327
that may guide that determination: “whether the rela-
tionship between the parties is a type of relationship that
generally entails a mutual expectation of service and reli-
ance,” “whether the potential plaintiffs were identifiable to
the defendant or otherwise could be defined as a class that
avoids indeterminate liability,” and “whether recognizing
such a claim would interfere with or impair the loyalties
that the professional owes to the client.” Id. at 446.4
With those considerations in mind, we turn to plain-
tiffs’ factual allegations, mindful that “a complaint must
allege facts, not legal theories.” Fazzolari, 303 Or at 15. To
determine whether the facts alleged in plaintiffs’ complaint
sufficiently stated a negligence claim against defendants,
we assume the truth of all well-pleaded factual allegations
in the complaint and draw all reasonable inferences from
those allegations in favor of plaintiffs. Tomlinson, 362 Or at
434.
As to the relationship between the parties, plain-
tiffs allege that defendants undertook to assess and treat
N. H.’s psychiatric condition, specifically, to assess whether
his worsening symptoms posed a danger to himself or his
family members. Plaintiffs allege that Maltais had a history
of participating in the psychiatric and medical care that
N. H. received at PeaceHealth for many years prior to the
incident at issue. They allege that she managed his med-
ical and psychiatric care because his own ability to do so
was severely impacted by his psychiatric condition and his
4
Defendants argued before the trial court that Tomlinson requires plain-
tiffs to allege that they had a separate legally protected interest, wholly inde-
pendent of N. H.’s interest in receiving non-negligent medical care, in order to
state a claim against defendants. Although Tomlinson does explain that the par-
ents in that case had a legally protected interest in reproductive autonomy, the
medical providers’ duty to protect that interest arose out of their undertaking to
diagnose the child’s genetic condition and therefore was not wholly independent.
Id. at 446-47. Identifying a protected interest, here, is simply a way to establish
that plaintiff suffered some legally cognizable damage. As discussed below, all
persons in Oregon have a legally cognizable interest in being free from physi-
cal harm at the hands of others. The requirement that plaintiffs must identify
and allege an independent legally protected interest is better understood in its
original context, which is to serve as a limit on liability for economic harms and
emotional distress damages. See, e.g., I. K. v. Banana Republic, LLC, 317 Or App
249, 505 P3d 1078 (2022); Rathgeber v. James Hemenway, Inc., 176 Or App 135, 30
P3d 1200 (2001), aff’d, 335 Or 404, 69 P3d 710 (2003); see also Philibert v. Kluser,
360 Or 698, 385 P3d 1038 (2016).
328 Maltais v. PeaceHealth
intellectual disabilities. They allege that she accompanied
him on his three visits to PeaceHealth that are the factual
basis for their claims, and that she alerted the psychiatrist
there to the specific threat that N. H. posed to her, that is,
that he was experiencing urges to stab his family members
with knives.
Based on the facts alleged, defendants’ professional
undertaking could reasonably include Maltais in her role as
N. H.’s primary caregiver and as a person endangered by his
condition. A factfinder could reasonably infer from the facts
alleged that the providers at PeaceHealth and N. H. relied
on Maltais to ensure that N. H. received appropriate care
in light of his disabilities, and that this role is reflected in
his medical records. Those facts could also support the addi-
tional inference that Maltais, in turn, relied on the provid-
ers at PeaceHealth to come to a correct diagnosis of N. H.’s
deteriorating condition and to provide him with appropriate
treatment, which would mitigate both the risk he posed to
himself and also the specific risk he posed to her physical
safety while she acted as his caregiver. Those allegations are
sufficient, if proved, to show that the relationship between
the parties fell within the scope of a professional undertak-
ing giving rise to legal protection.
As to whether “the potential plaintiffs were iden-
tifiable to the defendant,” id. at 446, plaintiffs allege that
Maltais was present during the three encounters that are
the subject of this litigation and that N. H. expressed a spe-
cific concern that he was being driven to do physical harm to
his family members. Plaintiffs further allege that Maltais
was N. H.’s mother and current caregiver. The allegations
of negligence support an inference that defendants should
have been aware of her relationship to N. H. and the dan-
ger he posed to her safety. On these facts, defendants could
readily identify Maltais as a person who was at risk of phys-
ical harm at the hands of their patient.5
Finally, we turn to the issue of whether recognizing
Maltais’s claim “will interfere with or impair the loyalties
5
As such, it is not necessary to determine whether plaintiffs “otherwise
could be defined as a class that avoids indeterminate liability.” Id.
Cite as 326 Or App 318 (2023) 329
that the professional owes to the client.” Id. at 446. The rea-
soning in Tomlinson is instructive here. The court explained
that, in undertaking to provide medical care to their patient,
the defendants in that case were subject to a professional
standard of care to “provide the patient with the level of
care that a reasonably prudent, careful, and skillful prac-
titioner of the physician’s discipline would have provided to
the patient under the same or similar circumstances and
within the same community.” Id. at 444. That standard of
care required that the defendants take reasonable steps
to come to a diagnosis under the circumstances, including
seeking testing for a genetic disorder, as well as communi-
cating a diagnosis of a genetic disorder to the plaintiffs as
the legal guardians and biological parents of the patient.
The actions a reasonably prudent medical professional
would be expected to take under such circumstances was
also the source of the parents’ reasonable expectation that
they would receive warnings about their own genetic risks.
The court observed further that recognizing the physician’s
duty to provide such information to the parents did not
present a conflict with the physician’s duty to protect their
patient’s interest in the privacy of their medical informa-
tion. Id. at 447-48.
The relevant question here is whether recognizing
that defendants have a duty to protect Maltais from being
injured by their patient, N. H., would undermine the care
that they have a duty to provide to N. H. Maltais, like all
persons, has “a legally protected interest to be ‘free from
physical harm at the hands of another.’ ” Scott v. Kesselring,
370 Or 1, 17, 513 P3d 581 (2022) (quoting Philibert v. Kluser,
360 Or 698, 703, 385 P3d 1038 (2016)). We follow Tomlinson’s
approach and look to the professional standard of care for
guidance. Because the physical injury that Maltais suffered
allegedly resulted from N. H.’s psychiatric condition, the
issue posed is whether defendants’ professional standard of
care included a duty to guard against that harm, and what
steps they were obligated to take to fulfill that duty. See
Curtis v. MRI Imaging Services II, 327 Or 9, 15-16, 956 P2d
960 (1998) (where the standard of care in a particular med-
ical profession dictates that precautions should be taken to
avoid or minimize a harm, a professional can be liable for
330 Maltais v. PeaceHealth
failing to meet that standard of care); Restatement (Third)
of Torts: Phys. & Emot. Harm § 41 comment g (2012) (When
a patient poses a risk of harm, a mental health professional
has a duty of reasonable care under the circumstances and
that “reasonable care may require providing appropriate
treatment, warning others of the risks posed by the patient,
seeking the patient’s agreement to a voluntary commitment,
making efforts to commit the patient involuntarily, or tak-
ing other steps to ameliorate the risk posed by the patient.”).
As relevant here, the complaint alleges that because
defendants negligently failed to diagnose N. H. as danger-
ous to himself and others, they thereby failed to “restrain,
admit, or secure” him. Plaintiffs also invoke the professional
standard of care in alleging that their injuries resulted from
defendants’ “conduct beneath the level of care that reason-
ably prudent, careful, and skilled practitioners of the respec-
tive disciplines would be expected to provide under the same
or similar circumstances within this community.” Here, as
in Tomlinson, the theory of recovery is that the standard
of care that applies to a medical professional’s treatment of
their patient generates a duty to protect the interests of a
nonpatient. Plaintiffs pled facts that, if proved, would show
that defendants undertook to treat N. H., a patient who
posed physical risks to himself and others, that they neg-
ligently failed to appropriately assess his psychiatric condi-
tion, and thus to discover that his condition created a risk of
physical harm to his family members. Plaintiffs sufficiently
pleaded the theory that defendants’ professional duty of care
under these circumstances would include a duty to restrain
or admit patients to mitigate the risks of physical harm that
they pose to others. A reasonable factfinder could also con-
clude based on the facts alleged that defendants did not mit-
igate that risk by restraining or admitting N. H., and that
the harms suffered by plaintiffs resulted from defendants’
failure to do so.6
6
In Curtis, the court inferred that “particular aspects of the relevant stan-
dard of care were at issue,” based on the plaintiff’s allegations: a duty to warn of
the MRI procedure’s possible claustrophobic effects, to monitor the patient appro-
priately, and to terminate the procedure if the patient begins to experience phys-
ical or psychological difficulties. 327 Or at 14. The court observed that “a medical
professional may operate under a standard of care that includes a specific duty
to be aware of and guard against particular adverse psychological reactions or
Cite as 326 Or App 318 (2023) 331
Defendants point to the provider’s obligation to pro-
tect N. H.’s liberty interest and posit that a duty to protect
that interest would conflict with a duty to protect Maltais’s
interest in her physical safety. They contend that recog-
nizing a duty to protect Maltais’s physical safety would
require defendants to commit or otherwise restrain N. H.
against his will. Whatever the merits of that argument in
the abstract, it does not track the factual allegations in this
case: The complaint alleges defendants negligently failed to
“restrain, admit, or secure” N. H., and also that he “wanted
to be admitted.” Taking the latter factual allegation as true,
this is not a case in which involuntary commitment is at
issue.
Reversed and remanded.
consequences to medical procedures.” Id. at 14-15. It concluded that the complaint
was sufficient to state a claim for malpractice because it adequately alleged that
the medical professionals owed a duty to plaintiff to identify and guard against
predictable psychological reactions to the MRI procedure. Id. at 16.
Here, plaintiffs allege that defendants failed to admit or restrain N. H. under
circumstances where he posed a danger to others. The remaining allegations
relate to defendants’ failure to appropriately assess N. H.’s dangerousness. As
in Curtis, those allegations support an inference that “particular aspects of the
relevant standard of care” are at issue, that is, what a reasonable practitioner
should do under conditions where their patient poses a danger. As in Curtis, that
is sufficient to state a claim. The specific conduct that is required by that stan-
dard of care is a fact-dependent issue, and common-law principles of reasonable
care are relevant to that issue. See Piazza v. Kellim, 360 Or 58, 73 n 9, 377 P3d
492 (2016) (“[I]f the special relationship (or status or standard of conduct) does
not prescribe a particular scope of duty, then common law principles of reason-
able care and foreseeability of harm are relevant.” (Internal quotation marks and
brackets omitted.)).