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Robinson v. Health Midwest Development Group3/6/2001
olicy and the underlying logic for it, it seems reasonable to suggest that the public policy of this state is to hold individuals, in certain circumstances, accountable to the general public when they act in a careless and imprudent manner such that it is foreseeable that their acts will likely result in injury or harm to members of the general public. It makes no sense to us to suggest that public policy would favor exposing a mere bartender to liability from a member of the general public for serving intoxicants to an underage or obviously intoxicated patron, but not a highly educated and trained physician for creating a foreseeable, dangerous situation by failing to warn a patient of the dangers associated with driving and taking a prescription drug known to the physician to cause side effects which would impair the patient's ability to drive.
In Gooden v. Tips, 651 S.W.2d 364 (Tex. App. 1983), the Texas Court of Appeals was confronted with a set of facts that are quite similar to those in the instant case. There, the plaintiff was injured when the vehicle he was driving was struck by a vehicle being driven by a patient who was under the influence of Quaalude, which had been prescribed by her physician, the defendant. Id. at 365. The plaintiff sued the defendant physician for his negligent care and treatment of the driver in failing to warn the patient not to drive. Id. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, who alleged, inter alia, in support of his motion that he did not owe a duty to the plaintiff because a physician-patient relationship did not exist between them. Id. On appeal, the court framed the issue thus:
When a physician prescribes a drug for his patient which the physician knows or should know has an intoxicating effect, does the physician have a duty to the public to warn that patient not to drive while under the influence of said drug? Or, stated another way, is the physician under a duty to take whatever steps are reasonable under the circumstances to reduce the likelihood of injury to third parties who may be injured by that patient because said patient is under the influence of an intoxicating drug prescribed by the physician? Id. at 366.
Persuaded by the numerous holdings in other jurisdictions finding a duty to the general public to warn, Kaiser v. Suburban Transp. Sys., 398 P.2d 14 (Wash. 1965); Freese v. Lemmon, 210 N.W.2d 576 (Iowa 1973); Wharton Transport Corp. v. Bridges, 606 S.W.2d 521 (Tenn. 1980), and the fact that the "harm resulting to the plaintiffs was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the physician's failure to warn his patient not to drive," Gordon, 651 S.W.2d at 369, the Texas appellate court reversed, holding, "it is apparent that, under proper facts, a physician can owe a duty to use reasonable care to protect the driving public where the physician's negligence in diagnosis or treatment of his patient contributes to plaintiff's injuries," id., and that, as such, the physician "may have had a duty to warn his patient not to drive." Id. at 370 (emphasis in original). In so holding, the court pointed out that the respondent did not have a duty "to prevent her from driving, if she so desired." Id. (emphasis in original). See also Helms v. Gonzalez, 885 S.W.2d 535 (Tex. App. 1994) (citing Gooden with approval).
Based upon our public policy analysis, and our consideration of Missouri case law and case law from other jurisdictions, we find that, under a given set of circumstances, a fact finder could find that a physician owed a duty of care to a member of the general public to warn a patient not to drive while under the influence of an intoxicating drug prescribed by the physician. As to our case, the sum
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