How have courts dealt with reliance claims in medical malpractice cases?

2 Keene v. Wiggins (1977) 69 Cal.App.3d 308, 138 Cal.Rptr. 3, relied upon by plaintiff, is not in point. The suit there was filed by an injured employee against a doctor who examined him for the employer's worker's compensation carrier. The doctor's report recommended no treatment or surgery, and plaintiff claimed he relied upon it "to his detriment." The Court of Appeal upheld summary judgment for the doctor, finding no patient relationship, and hence no duty of care. The differences between that case and this are too obvious to warrant discussion.

Rosenthal v. Blum (1975) 529 S.W.2d 102 (Tex.Civ.App.) is also not in point, for it was founded upon a theory of negligent misrepresentation, an element of which is reliance (plaintiff there relied on the doctor's report and settled his case for an insufficient sum, claiming as damage the difference between that sum and the true value of his case). Here we obviously have no reliance by plaintiff. Even so, my analysis would not permit recovery on those facts either.