When a judgment is entered in a medical malpractice case involving multiple parties, does the judgment leave no issue as to one party?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from State v. Superior Court of L. A. Cnty., B264676 (Cal. App. 2015):

There is an exception to this rule, however, in cases that involve multiple parties and a judgment is entered "which leaves no issue to be determined as to one party." (Justus v. Atchison (1977) 19 Cal.3d 564, 568.) In Justus, two couples brought actions for medical malpractice and wrongful death in connection with the stillbirths of their babies. In addition, each of the husbands brought a separate cause of action "for the shock he allegedly experienced in witnessing that death." (Id. at p. 567.) The superior court granted the demurrers of defendants without leave to amend, and the plaintiff husbands appealed. Appeal was proper because the judgments, although not resolving the entire complaint, "disposed in each case of all the causes of action in which the husbands are plaintiffs. It is irrelevant that the wives joined with the husbands as plaintiffs in one of these causes of action. This circumstance does not affect the reason for the exception, i.e., that it better serves the interests of justice to afford prompt appellate review to a party whose rights or liabilities have been definitively adjudicated than to require him to await the final outcome of trial proceedings which are of no further concern to him." (Id. at p. 568.)

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