Tort laws refers to laws that offer solutions to persons injured or harmed by unreasonable actions by those around them, There are two types of torts, intentional torts and negligence torts (Feinman,2010). Intentional torts are torts whereby a person committing the offence has the intention to do it while in negligence torts, the acts leading to the injury are not always intentional or expected. Negligence torts can be avoided if proper care is exercised.
In Bobby’s case, it was a negligent tort case because most of the parties involved caused the injuries out of carelessness and negligence without the intention to harm him. ACE Sports was negligent because while building the blackboard and rim that hurt Bobby, they left small pieces of metals sticking out which cut Bobby’s wrists. ACE sports has to bear responsibility because Bobby and Rachel were students who had a right to play on their school playground and if the rims were installed and built well, when Bobby fell, his wrists could not have been cut by them.
Nurse Williams at City General Hospital was negligent because, she failed to treat Bobby and never cared about the consequences of her actions yet Bobby’s case was an emergency case. If she had treated Bobby, maybe this could have prevented the loss of his both wrists. The nurse failed to conform to EMTALA’s statutes of treating emergency patients regardless of them being able to pay for the medical bills or not (Guido, 2001). The purpose of EMTALA is to stop hospitals from rejecting patients, refusing to treat them and from transferring them to county hospitals for lack of medical insurance or funds to pay for their medical bills. Bobby was in great pain as his wrists were cut yet the nurse failed to attend to his emergency which led him to being transferred to a county hospital where he ended up losing both wrists, a harm that could have been avoided.
The county emergency room physician was negligent because he failed to conform to the required standards care of examining the patient carefully before referring him to an immediate surgery. He failed to follow the standards of care by assessing the patient carefully before recommending a surgery. Dr, Andrew also exercised negligence because he was the one who ordered for the amputation of Bobby’s right hand wrist. The doctor did this hurriedly and carelessly because if he had examined Bobby in a proper way, he could have known that it was the left hand and not the right wrist that was to be amputated. The doctor never thought of the potential harm of his hurried actions and he breached his duty of reasonable care because he exposed Bobby to a substantial risk of loss where he lost both wrists instead of one. The doctor's professional negligence made Bobby to lose both arms (Giannini and Slaby, 1989).
The surgeon failed to seek higher medical authorization but just went ahead by following the orders from the doctor and amputated the wrong wrist. Even though he might be termed not liable for the tort because he has to follow the doctors and physicians orders, he could have assessed the patient first before amputating his wrist (Jena et al., 2011)
Comparative negligence is a legal principal where concerned parties contribute directly to the damages they have caused to an individual. All parties play negligence and they have to contribute. Joint and several liability is where two or more parties are liable of the same tort or liability. In joint liability, the parties are each accountable to the full amount of the relevant obligation while in several liability, there are different parties but each party will only be liable for their respective role of negligence. In several liability, all the parties share the liability regardless of their personal contribution of the damage (Miller-Slade, 1997).
The law of negligence applies to Bobby’s case because Bobby was owed a duty of care by all parties involved in his case yet they all neglected their duties of standard care and acted negligently. The nurse had the duty to prevent Bobby from unreasonable risks but she failed by neglecting him. The physician and the doctor failed in their duty of exercising reasonable standards of care which led to the amputation of Bobby’s left hand which was a mistake. Bobby’s both arms were amputated and this constitutes that he be awarded for negligence since all that happened to him could have been prevented. Bobby suffered tortuous injuries as a result of negligence and according to the tort law; he is to be compensated since negligence is the most common unintentional tort that one has to be liable for.
References
Feinman, J. (2010). Law101. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jena, A. B., Seabury, S., Lakdawalla, D., and Chandra, A. (2011). "Malpractice risk according to physician specialty". N. Engl. J. Med. 365 (7), 629–36
Giannini, A. J., Giannini, M. C., and Slaby, A. E. (1989). Suicide--The medical-legal implications. Psychiatric Forum, 14(2), 6-10.
Miller-Slade, D. (1997). Liability theories in nursing negligence cases. Trial 1997, 33(5), 52-7.
Guido, G. W. (2001). Tort law: In legal and ethical issues in nursing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
