Largey v. Rothman, 110 N.J. 204

Summary

The Supreme Court of New Jersey held that informed-consent claims are governed by the reasonable-patient or materiality-of-risk standard, rather than the professional medical standard previously adopted in Kaplan v. Haines. The court held that a physician must disclose information material to a reasonable patient's treatment decision, including material risks and available alternatives. It also adopted an objective prudent-patient standard for proximate causation and reversed and remanded for a new trial.

Holdings

1. New Jersey adopts the prudent-patient, or materiality-of-risk, standard rather than the professional standard. A physician must disclose information about material risks, alternatives, and likely consequences of foregoing treatment that a reasonable patient in the patient's position would consider significant in deciding whether to undergo the proposed treatment.
2. Whether a particular risk must be disclosed depends on whether a reasonable patient in the patient's position would likely attach significance to that risk in deciding whether to undergo treatment. When reasonable minds could debate the materiality of the risk, the issue is for the factfinder.
3. Causation must be determined objectively by asking what a prudent person in the patient's position would have decided if adequately informed of the material risks. A plaintiff establishes causation if adequate disclosure could reasonably have caused that person to decline the treatment because of the risk that resulted in harm.
4. Because the jury was instructed under the rejected professional standard, the judgment must be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial consistent with the prudent-patient standard.

Questions Presented

1. Whether New Jersey should measure a physician's informed-consent disclosure duty by the professional standard of what reasonable medical practitioners would disclose or by the prudent-patient/materiality-of-risk standard.
2. Whether causation in an informed-consent action should be determined objectively by asking what a prudent person in the patient's position would have decided if adequately informed.
3. Whether the plaintiffs were entitled to a new trial because the jury was instructed under the rejected professional standard.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded