Goldenberg v. Woodard (Summary)

NEGLIGENCE

Goldenberg v. Woodard, Nos. 57232, 58151 (Nev. June 20, 2014)

The Supreme Court of Nevada affirmed in part and reversed in part a physician’s appeals from a judgment finding him negligent and fraudulent. The physician-defendant decided to expand his practice by offering colonoscopies after he attended a continuing medical education course. After being granted privileges at a surgery center with the condition that he was to be supervised by an experienced physician, the physician scheduled a colonoscopy with patient-plaintiff. The supervising physician did not show up at the scheduled time, but the physician proceeded nonetheless. The physician experienced difficulty during the procedure and left an instrument induced half-dollar-size hole in the patient’s colon. The jury found against the physician and the surgery center for claims of professional negligence and fraud.

The physician argued that the fraud and professional negligence claims fell under a statutory damages cap which limited the patient’s entire noneconomic damages to $350,000. The district court held that the statutory damages cap was only for professional negligence and it was to be applied separately to each defendant. The physician appealed, claiming the district court erred by upholding the jury’s finding of fraud against him, applying the damages cap separately to each defendant, and refusing to reduce the damages awarded against him.

The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the jury’s finding of fraud because there was substantial evidence that the physician materially misled the patient about his ability to perform the procedure. The court held that this specific claim for fraud was “qualitatively different” than a claim for professional negligence, so that the statutory cap did not apply to the fraud damages. Lastly, the court held that the statutory damages cap for professional negligence applied to the patient’s entire award for noneconomic damages, not to each separate defendant.