Dr. Jack is a physician at Durfmedical in Greenacre. Sara is a bus driver for the Greenacre City School District (GCSD) and earns $3,000 per month. Dr. Jack is conducting surgery on Sara's right ankle to remove a bone spur. After the surgery is completed, Sara realizes that the doctor conducted surgery on the left ankle and not the right ankle. While recovering from the surgery on the left ankle, Sara goes through five months of physical therapy at a cost of $8,000. She also misses three months of work at GCSD. IRAC
Analyze 4 elements of Negligence:
Duty
Breach
Causation
Damage
Issue: Will Dr. Jack be held liable for Negligence?
Rule: In order to establish a prima facie case for negligence, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant breached that duty, which caused damage to the plaintiff.
Analysis: Dr. Jack's duty is required to patients to uphold standard of reasonable care. Dr. Jack works as a physician at Dufmedical and obliged to perform surgeries on patients who require them. It
Therefore, Dr. Jack's duty is
A duty is breached when a person falls below the standard of care. Because Dr. Jack failed to operate on Sara right ankle that had the bone spur, he fell below the standard of care of a reasonable person under the same or similar circumstances and thus breached his duty.
It is foreseeable that if Dr. Jack would have performed the surgery correctly,