HUMAN RIGHTS

Tort Law in relation to Health Practitioners

Tort Law in relation to Health Practitioners

Introduction

Tort law' is often treated as synonymous with 'accident law' although in fact this is misleading as tort addresses many situations which go beyond compensation for accidents. That said, it is the principal mechanism for the provision of compensation for personal injuries—through the tort of negligence—so it is in that context that people are most likely to encounter it. Yet torts in the wider sense are all around us (White, 1990). They may take the form of scurrilous attacks on a person's reputation (defamation); deliberate physical harm ( trespass to person); or calling a strike (inducing breach of contract). Some torts, such as trespass to person or negligence, are well established; others have only recently emerged or are still in the course of becoming (witness, for example, recent legal debate on the extent to which English law protects a right to privacy). Some torts have been abolished by statute (Dobbs, 2000). There used to be a cluster of torts around family life which protected the interests of the husband/father in relation to his wife/children. These 'domestic torts' included an action for loss of 'consortium' (understood in terms of a wife's services and companionship), the tort of 'seduction', and a claim for 'criminal conversation' (essentially a suit by a cuckolded husband against the adulterous couple). As these torts suggest, tort law takes much of it colour and form from its historical, social, and cultural context. Hence the emergence of new torts in recent years addressing newly recognized social problems such as harassment. It is often said that tort law is better at protecting the physical integrity of the person than their emotional or psychological integrity and it is true that, in a negligence context in particular, tort law struggles to recognize and remedy emotional harm, particularly where no physical damage has occurred. That said, there are some torts, for example, in relation to reputation, which are wholly concerned with non-physical violations of personal integrity so it is not entirely accurate to say that tort is not concerned with non- physical injury as such (Huber, 1988).

Ethical Issues of Health Practitioners and Tort Laws

Tort is said to be a wrongdoing that is committed against an individual or an individual's property. The law is based on the set of duties and responsibilities that a health practitioner is suppose to extend towards the patient as it is the patients right. This law also states that no duty was owed to the patient initially and it is upon undertaking the responsibilities by the health practitioner that the health practitioner is liable to any law suit filed by the patient if the health practitioner is unable to extend the promised services. Every law has an exception and so does Tort Law. The exceptions include the right to refuse or disagreement on extending care to an individual based on religious beliefs. The religious belief constitutes the perception regarding ...