Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Medical Malpractice is now a separate project. At the 2023 Annual Meeting, members will be asked to consider Tentative Draft No. 1 of Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Medical Malpractice. This is the first time that the project will be presented in a standalone draft.
Portions of the now-distinct Medical Malpractice project previously appeared in the Miscellaneous Provisions project. Three Sections of the Medical Malpractice project (Patient and Provider Defined; Patient-Care Relationship; and Duties to Patients and Others, including Liability for Breach of Duty) were previously approved by membership at the 2022 Annual Meeting as part of the Miscellaneous Provisions (formerly titled “Concluding Provisions”) project. Professor Mark A. Hall of Wake Forest University, an Associate Reporter on the Concluding Provisions project, has been named a Reporter on the Medical Malpractice project, alongside Torts: Miscellaneous Provisions Reporters Michael Green of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law and Nora Freeman Engstrom of Stanford Law School.
ALI Deputy Director Eleanor Barrett explains in the Medical Malpractice Tentative Draft Foreword, “As work on the then-named Concluding Provisions progressed, it became clear that the material on medical malpractice was sufficiently complex, significant, and voluminous to warrant independent treatment. As a result, this year, the provisions dealing with medical liability were spun off into their own distinct volume, Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Medical Malpractice.”
At this year’s Annual Meeting, the membership will be presented Sections on Establishing Breach of the Standard of Care, Res Ipsa Loquitur, Agreements Affecting Medical Liability, No Waiver of Liability, Agreements to Take a Nonstandard Approach to Care, and Informed Consent: Duty and Exceptions.