I'm looking for a precedent of a doctor getting sued after giving his private phone number for a patient to consult, yet not being available at a moment of emergency.
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1Is this specific to the U.S.?– Pat W. ♦Jul 27, 2015 at 17:10
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Yes, thank you for the comment. This is specific for the US. Though if you know of any international precedence that might be of interest as well– vondipJul 27, 2015 at 17:16
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2You've used the word precedence, did you mean precedent instead? Precedence is about order or urgency, Precedent is an example used to justify similar occurrences.– Jason AllerJul 27, 2015 at 23:17
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1 Answer
You don't specify what country's law you're interested in, but as you mention precedent, I'll assume you're interested in common-law jurisdictions such as the United States.
The short answer is: you won't find any successful lawsuits such as you describe, at least not without some significant additional facts.
In order to be subject to liability, a person needs to commit a breach of some duty. In a civil suit, this needs to be a duty to the plaintiff.
In order for it to be actionable for the doctor to not answer the phone, the doctor would have to have somehow assumed a duty to answer the phone at that particular time. Giving someone your phone number is not, in and of itself, a promise that you will never take a shower, or go to a movie, or let your battery run down, or for any other reason be unwilling or unable to answer your phone at a moment's notice.
In addition, the patient would have to demonstrate that the doctor, by failing to answer the phone, caused some sort of harm. If the patient is having a medical emergency of some sort, the doctor's advice will almost certainly be: "Hang up and dial 911." This is something the patient can do without the doctor's help.
Without some more significant and compelling facts, no court is going to impose a duty on a doctor to sit by the phone waiting for a patient's call.
