BISMARCK, N.D. (Legal Newsline) - An eye doctor who warned his patient not to drive on the highway isn’t responsible for a fatal accident that occurred when the patient’s truck rammed a horse-drawn hay wagon on the highway, the North Dakota Supreme Court has ruled.
In its second trip to the high court, the Supreme Court dismissed the case against Dr. Briana Bohn and Dakota Eye Institute, ruling there was no evidence to support a claim Dr. Bohn contributed to the accident by telling Lyle Lima he could drive under limited circumstances.
Lima’s truck collided with a horse-drawn trailer in May 2016, injuring five of the passengers on board and killing one. In 2015, a doctor at Dakota Eye Institute had diagnosed Lima to be legally blind, but about six weeks before the accident Dr. Bohn had revised instructions to say Lima was “not to drive at night and only minimally during the day, no highways.”
The plaintiffs sued Lima, while Lima sued the eye doctor and the owner of a farm he claimed distracted him before the accident occurred. In partial settlement, Lima assigned those claims to the plaintiffs, and the trial court dismissed claims against the eye doctor. The plaintiffs appealed and the North Dakota Supreme Court reversed in a decision that ruled physicians don’t owe a duty to third parties under these circumstances, but required further proceedings on other issues.
The trial court again dismissed the case against Dr. Bohn and the Eye Institute but certified the question for appeal. On appeal, the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal.
“It was an undisputed fact that Lima drove on a highway,” the Supreme Court ruled, in an April 19 decision by Justice Jerod Tufte. “The court determined there was no competent admissible evidence to contradict the chart notation reflecting Dr. Bohn’s advice `not to drive at night and only minimally during the day, no highways.’”
Two justices dissented, saying the court should have denied the appeal to avoid deciding pieces of a case involving multiple defendants.