{"id":33671,"date":"2020-10-08T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/?p=33671"},"modified":"2020-10-07T16:51:30","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T20:51:30","slug":"georgia-medical-malpractice-cases-in-the-time-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/georgia-medical-malpractice-cases-in-the-time-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Medical Malpractice Cases in the Time of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prior the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to successfully bring a medical malpractice claim in Georgia, a plaintiff was required to offer expert medical testimony to the effect that the defendant physician or healthcare provider failed to exercise that degree of care and skill which would ordinarily have been employed by the medical profession generally under the circumstances.\u00a0 <u>See<\/u> <u>Boling v. Foster<\/u>, 254 Ga. App. 374 (2002).\u00a0 The legal duty owed by medical professionals was to exercise \u201ca reasonable degree of care and skill.\u201d\u00a0 <u>See<\/u> O.C.G.A. \u00a7 51-1-27.\u00a0 This is the standard that applied in the vast majority of medical malpractice cases.\u00a0 A narrow exception existed for the provision of emergency medical care in a hospital emergency department or obstetrical department, where it is necessary to prove by \u201cclear and convincing evidence\u201d that the physician or healthcare provider\u2019s actions showed \u201cgross negligence.\u201d\u00a0 <u>See<\/u> O.C.G.A. \u00a7 51-1-29.5(c).<\/p>\n<p>This threshold for proving liability in Georgia medical malpractice cases changed with Governor Kemp\u2019s Executive Order entered April 14, 2020 concerning the Covid-19 crisis.\u00a0 Executive Order 04.14.20.01, limits liability for any harm done by the employees, staff, and contractors of healthcare institutions and medical facilities\u00a0 during the \u201cPublic Health State of Emergency\u201d as to negligence, but not gross negligence, regardless of whether such service is related to the Public Health State of Emergency. \u00a0\u201cGross negligence\u201d is the absence of even slight diligence, and slight diligence is defined as \u201cthat degree of care which every man of common sense, however inattentive he may be, exercises under the same or similar circumstances.\u201d\u00a0 <u>Gliemmo v. Cousineau<\/u>, 287 Ga. 7 (2010). \u00a0The Executive Order applies to all clinics, hospitals, nursing &amp; assisted living facilities, as well as ambulatory surgical centers.<\/p>\n<p>The Executive Order further provides that \u201cThe employees, staff, and contractors of healthcare institutions and medical facilities shall be considered auxiliary emergency management workers pursuant to Code Section 38-3-35.\u201d\u00a0 O.C.G.A. \u00a7 38-3-35(b) provides that auxiliary emergency management workers are immune from liability for harm, including death, sustained by persons as a result of \u201cemergency management activity\u201d, unless such emergency activity causing the harm was due to willful misconduct, gross negligence, or bad faith. \u00a0O.C.G.A. \u00a7 38-3-3(2) defines &#8220;emergency management&#8221; broadly, as \u201cthe preparation for the carrying out of all emergency functions \u2026 to prevent, minimize, and repair injury and damage resulting from emergencies &#8230; These functions include, without limitation \u2026 emergency medical services \u2026 together with all other activities necessary or incidental to the preparation for and carrying out of the foregoing functions.\u201d\u00a0 This means that \u201cauxiliary emergency management workers\u201d are immune from liability even if they acted negligently in providing medical care to a patient in Georgia.\u00a0 Instead, in order to recover a plaintiff must prove that the medical care provided constituted gross negligence.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/georgia-medical-malpractice-cases-in-the-time-of-covid-19\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Georgia Medical Malpractice Cases in the Time of COVID-19\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to successfully bring a medical malpractice claim in Georgia, a plaintiff was required to offer expert medical testimony to the effect that the defendant physician or healthcare provider failed to exercise that degree of care and skill which would ordinarily have been employed by the medical profession generally under [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[47,44],"class_list":["post-33671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-injury-wrongful-death","tag-medical-malpractice","tag-personal-injury"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Georgia Medical Malpractice Cases in the Time of COVID-19 &#8212; 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