Also known as: patients · patiens · medical patient
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A person who receives medical diagnosis, treatment, or care from a health-care provider. The relationship creates duties of confidentiality and care on the provider side and supports privileges that protect communications made for purposes of diagnosis or treatment.
Officer Portia Price met with a licensed social worker for several sessions after a fatal shooting. When a subpoena later sought the social worker's notes, the court applied the federal psychotherapist-patient privilege and barred disclosure of the confidential communications made during diagnosis and treatment.
The state health department compiled a computerized list containing the names and addresses of patients who had received prescriptions for controlled substances. Patricia Patel, one such patient, challenged the program on privacy grounds, but the court upheld the collection because reasonable safeguards prevented improper disclosure.
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Priya Prasad's physician prescribed a medication whose risks had been fully disclosed to the doctor. When Prasad later suffered an adverse reaction, she sued the manufacturer for failure to warn the patient directly. The court held that the learned intermediary doctrine shielded the manufacturer because the physician's independent judgment broke the causal chain.
Paula Pierce received an implanted device after her surgeon evaluated the manufacturer's warnings. She later sued the manufacturer claiming inadequate warnings to patients. The court reaffirmed that the duty to warn runs only to the prescribing physician, not the patient, and dismissed the claim.
Phoebe Park sued a medical-device manufacturer after complications from an implant. She offered only general evidence that physicians knew of certain risks. The Eleventh Circuit held that she had to show the warning to her own physician would have changed the prescribing decision, and dismissed the case under the learned intermediary doctrine.
Pilar Pena, the end user of a negligently manufactured component, suffered injury when the component failed. The court extended liability to the remote manufacturer because the product was dangerous if defective and reached the user without substantial change, satisfying the requirements for recovery by an ultimate user.
Yes. Federal common law recognizes the privilege for confidential communications made in the course of diagnosis or treatment between a patient and a licensed social worker, operating in most respects like the attorney-client privilege.
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Yes. The right of privacy does not bar the state from collecting and storing names and addresses of such patients when reasonable safeguards against disclosure are in place.
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The manufacturer owes the duty to the prescribing physician, not directly to the patient. Adequate warnings to the physician satisfy the duty because the physician exercises independent medical judgment.
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The plaintiff must show that an inadequate warning to the physician would have altered the physician's prescribing decision. Generalized evidence of risk awareness is insufficient.
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…is faced with the risk of criminal prosecution for violation of a statute regulating the performance of abortions may assert his patients' rights as well as his own. Pp. 127-129. 3. The District Court correctly refused injunctive relief but erred in granting declaratory relief to Roe. Pp. 129-166. (a) The principle that a…