The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Rivera, reversing the Appellate Division, determined evidence of a consent order, in which defendant physician acknowledged a negligent failure to adequately monitor a dozen patients for whom he prescribed medication, should not have been admitted in evidence. The essence of the malpractice claim was defendant’s continued prescription of an anti-depressant for plaintiff’s decedent over a ten-year period, without seeing plaintiff’s decedent in his office, proximately caused plaintiff’s decedent’s suicide:
The record establishes that the Consent Order was neither probative of defendant’s negligence or the question of proximate cause. As part of the Consent Order defendant agreed not to contest negligent treatment of certain anonymous patients, none of whom was the decedent. As such, defendant preserved his objections to factual allegations related to decedent and any charges of misconduct based on those allegations. Since the Consent Order did not establish facts concerning defendant’s treatment of decedent, it was not probative as to that issue. In any event, given defendant’s pre-trial concession that he deviated from accepted medical practice, the issue of negligent treatment did not require resolution by the jury.
Further, any possible relevance of the Consent Order’s contents was outweighed by the obvious undue prejudice of his repeated violations of accepted medical standards … . The Consent Order was nothing more than evidence of unrelated bad acts, the type of propensity evidence that lacks probative value concerning any material factual issue, and has the potential to induce the jury to decide the case based on evidence of defendant’s character … . Mazella v Beals, 2016 NY Slip Op 05182, CtApp 6-30-16
NEGLIGENCE (MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, EVIDENCE OF PRIOR BAD ACTS BY DEFENDANT PHYSICIAN SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN THIS MEDICAL MALPRACTICE ACTION, PLAINTIFF’S VERDICT REVERSED)/EVIDENCE (MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, EVIDENCE OF PRIOR BAD ACTS BY DEFENDANT PHYSICIAN SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN THIS MEDICAL MALPRACTICE ACTION, PLAINTIFF’S VERDICT REVERSED)/MEDICAL MALPRACTICE (EVIDENCE, EVIDENCE OF PRIOR BAD ACTS BY DEFENDANT PHYSICIAN SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN THIS MEDICAL MALPRACTICE ACTION, PLAINTIFF’S VERDICT REVERSED)/PRIOR BAD ACTS (MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, EVIDENCE OF PRIOR BAD ACTS BY DEFENDANT PHYSICIAN SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADMITTED IN THIS MEDICAL MALPRACTICE ACTION, PLAINTIFF’S VERDICT REVERSED)