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Utah Supreme Court Rules That Alleged Sexual Assault by a Doctor Is Not “Health Care” (www.propublica.org)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The decision revives a lawsuit filed by 94 women who said their OB-GYN sexually abused them. Previously, a lower court determined that the actions they alleged had to be treated as medical malpractice.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (3 children)

It's insane to me that judges can just make these stupid ass rulings that are obviously wrong and just never face any consequences. Like why hasn't that lower court judge been removed from his position for clearly making a biased ruling to protect a sexual abuser???

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Utah is among the states with the broadest definition of medical malpractice, covering any acts “arising” out of health care. The Utah Supreme Court has ruled that a teenage boy was receiving health care when he was allowed to climb a steep, snow-dusted rock outcrop as part of wilderness therapy. When he broke his leg, he could only sue for medical malpractice, so the case faced shorter filing deadlines and lower monetary caps. Similarly, the court has ruled that a boy harmed by another child while in foster care was also bound by medical malpractice law.

It really sounds like bad legislation over a bad judge to me.

Supreme Court judges get more latitude to decide that the laws themselves are nonsense. Lower level judges are more bound to the actual laws themselves. As a judge, your personal ethics matter, but only to an extent. You're ultimately supposed to be ruling based on the actual laws/precedent relevant to the case, even if you don't like it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Sure bro, that's why Aileen Cannon got removed from Trump's cases.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Immunity.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I suppose that literally answers my question. Lol

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yeah, it's almost impossible to remove a sitting judge. For federal judges, they have lifetime appointments and the only option to remove them is impeachment. Only 15 federal judges have been impeached, 8 being convicted in the US history. State judges are elected, and only 18 states have a recall process, which is lengthy and heavily stacked in the judge's favor. So the only reasonable way to remove them is to elect someone else, when their term ends.

And they have absolute immunity for all judicial actions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Haven't read the lower court opinion but I wouldn't be shocked if there was another past precedent on medical malpractice in the region that bound the judge under to make that outcome until a higher court could reverse them.