What Medical Malpractice Means Legally
The civil-law side of medical malpractice is defined by the Georgian Civil Code, and it is precisely this Code that carries a patient’s claim for compensation of damage. The foundation is the general concept of a delict: a person who, by an unlawful, intentional or negligent act, causes damage to another person is obliged to compensate that damage. In the medical context this means that damage connected with treatment is compensable where it was caused by an unlawful and culpable act.
The decisive norm exists specifically for medical institutions: damage caused to a person’s health during treatment in a medical institution — including the result of a surgical operation or an erroneous diagnosis — is compensated on general grounds. The tortfeasor is released from liability only if it proves that it bears no fault in the occurrence of the damage. This burden of disproving fault rests on the party that caused the damage — a circumstance that significantly strengthens the patient’s position.
Who Answers — the Doctor or the Institution
The rule on damage caused to third parties resolves this question with disarming simplicity: a person is obliged to compensate the damage that a third party suffered through the unlawful act of the person’s worker in the performance of the worker’s labor (service) duty. In general, therefore, for damage caused by a doctor employed at a clinic, the institution where the doctor performed the professional duty answers. At the same time no liability arises where the worker acted without fault — so the inquiry follows the trail of fault, not the patient’s mere dissatisfaction. A two-step check is thus created: first the worker’s fault is established, and then the institution’s right to release itself by disproving fault.
Where several persons participate in causing the damage, they answer as solidary debtors — the injured party may demand compensation from each of them or from all together. Solidary liability extends not only to the person who directly caused the damage but also to the one who instigated or aided it, and to the one who knowingly benefited from damage caused to another. In practice this means that damage jointly produced by several medical interventions puts the whole chain on the hook.