Miss Parker Heart Surgery At General Hospital Case Analysis

Case Analysis Assignments

The primary purpose of the case analysis assignments is to develop your analytical and critical thinking skills. They also serve as an additional repetition of certain legal concepts. These mini-cases force you to identify the legal issues presented by the facts, and state the controlling rule of law. They require you to apply the law to the facts to determine who should prevail. This is commonly referred to the IRAC method: Issue, Rule, Analysis, and Conclusion. Please use the appropriate IRAC heading for each section of your answer. You should consider the motivations of the parties and consider what holding would be the most just and or the best precedent. Student work that identifies the correct legal issue, applies
Sheppard scheduled Miss Parker for heart surgery at General Hospital. Miss Parker signed a consent form- a form signed by a patient prior to a medical procedure to confirm that he or she agrees to the procedure and is aware of any risks that might be involved (provide evidence that the patient gave consent to the procedure in question) for Dr. Sheppard to perform surgery where he would add a pacemaker to her heart. Dr. Shepard correctly informed her that, if she didn’t receive the surgery, she had a high probability of suffering a heart attack in the future. (HIGH RISK PROCEDURE) During the surgery Dr. Sheppard inserted the pacemaker, but Miss Parker’s heart was damaged and stopped beating. Her brain was without blood for a period-of-time, whereby she suffered brain damage. Her court-appointed representative refused to pay the $30,000 billed by General Hospital or the $20,000 charged by Dr. Shepard for the surgery. Miss Parker will incur $5,000,000 in expenses for her future care as result of her injuries. Using the IRAC method describe the possible, contract, tort and criminal actions that might arise out of this operation. Describe the elements of each legal theory and the factual assumptions that would be necessary for those legal actions to succeed. Describe what she or the district attorney would have to prove to prevail in the various
The district attorney could argue comparative negligence which would split damages based on the percentage of fault of the plaintiff and the defendant. The patient and her legal defense would have to prove all the elements of negligence, such as, duty, breach, causation, in fact, proximate cause, and damages. The patient does have an actual injury due to the procedure but the question is does she get compensatory damages based on her injuries. The expenses incurred from her procedure are too much for the patient to pay due her current injuries, therefore she will not be able to work and pay for the expenses. General Hospital should pay for the damages because of respondeat superior, which is, an employer is liable for the negligence of its employees that occur within the scope of their employment. The respondeat superior is under strict liability. The doctor was negligent by not catching everything that could go wrong during and after the surgery. Criminal action that might arise; the patient or the hospital not paying the expenses, the court could treat the nonpayments as contempt and can issue an