User:Bluerasberry/Mohr v Williams

Mohr v. Williams

‘’’Mohr v. Williams’’’ is a 1905 United States court case which is significant for setting a precedent in establishing the concept of informed consent in medical treatment.

Case
Anna Mohr was a patient with a problem on her right ear. In consultation with her physician, she agreed to have a surgery on this ear. While in surgery, the physician identified a problem with her left ear, and operated on it instead of the ear on which she requested the surgery. As a result of the treatment, Mohr lost hearing in her left ear.

Mohr filed suit against her physician claiming that he committed battery on her.

Result of case
The court found that the physician acted inappropriately by failing to get the patient’s consent to operate on her left ear. When the patient consented to surgery for one ear, that did not imply that the patient agreed to surgery for the other ear, especially considering that the risk of harm for surgery on one ear was not the same as the risk for the other.

“The free citizen’s first and greatest right, which underlies all others - the right to himself - is the subject of universal acquiescence, and this right necessarily forbids a physician or surgeon, however skillful or eminent, who has been asked to examine, diagnose, advise and prescribe … to violate without permission the bodily integrity of his patient by a major or capital operation, and operating on him without his consent or knowledge.”

The ruling suggested that just because a patient has agreed to receive one treatment from a physician, that consent does not imply that the patient has agreed to receive whatever other treatment the physician thinks is best. Particularly in the case of surgery, express consent for that surgery is required.

The ruling is written with the premise that patients must be informed of the “dangers and risks” and agree to accept them before a physician provides treatment.

In writing its ruling, the court cited a torts treatise which said, “The patient must be the final arbiter as to whether he shall take his chances with the operation, or take his chances living without it.” It also made a comparison between consent in the doctor patient relationship and in business contracts, suggesting that consents are like contracts in the sense of requiring informed discussion between the parties.

Historical perspective
In considering the modern concept of informed consent, the court’s ruling is striking for explaining a modern concept before the establishment of modern standard jargon terms like “self-determination” or “autonomy”. Instead of those terms, the ruling mentions a concept of “right to himself”.

To decide the case, the court could have only ruled on whether the patient had consented to the surgery which was performed. Instead, the court went beyond only deciding the case by analyzing the concept of consent and presuming that patients should expect to be part of a decision making process.