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New Jersey Supreme Court Rules On Applicability Of Good Samaritan Act To Emergencies In Hospitals

The New Jersey Supreme Court has upheld an Appellate Division decision that declined to apply the New Jersey Good Samaritan Act to a non-emergency-room physician who answered an urgent call for help in a hospital and attempted to resolve a crisis confronted by a patient of another doctor. The Supreme Court held that the Act, which immunizes doctors who come to the aid of persons in need of medical attention at the scene of an accident or emergency, doesn't apply when the emergency arises in a hospital. In the May 29, 2002 ruling, Justice Virginia Long wrote that, absent evidence of legislative intent to the contrary, the law applies only when emergency assistance is needed at a location lacking adequate medical facilities.

The physician was at a nursing station reviewing fetal monitors of her own patients when she heeded a call for help from a doctor in a nearby delivery room. The mother giving birth was in the throes of a severe crisis: the baby's head was delivered but his body was stuck. This condition, known as shoulder dystocia, had already deprived the baby of critical oxygen. It later turned out that the mother's personal physician had committed devastating malpractice. Plaintiffs sued not only the personal physician but also the physician who responded to the urgent call for help.

In her petition, the physician noted that the New Jersey Good Samaritan Act immunizes "[a]ny individual ... who renders emergency care at the scene of an accident or emergency"; it does not exclude hospital settings. She argued that the Appellate Division erred by concluding that the statute "intended that the immunity stop at the door of the hospital."

The physician also argued that not all doctors within a hospital have a preexisting legal duty to provide emergency care to patients of other doctors. While doctors assigned to an emergency room may have such a duty to all patients in the emergency room, non-emergency-room doctors do not have a pre-existing legal duty to all patients in the hospital.

The physician's petition for certification was prepared by shareholder Donald P. Jacobs, one of the attorneys in Budd Larner's Appellate group. Shareholder Cynthia A. Walters was of counsel. Velazquez v. Jiminez, 336 N.J. Super. 10, 46-53 (App. Div. 2000), petition for certif. granted (N.J., June 6, 2001), aff'd, A-105-00 (May 29, 2002).