Jenoff v. Gleason

In Jenoff v. Gleason, 215 N.J.Super. 349, 521 A.2d 1323 (App.Div.1987), the Court held that the common knowledge doctrine obtained in the absence of expert testimony explicitly delineating a radiologist's duty of care in choosing the method by which he communicated his findings of a lung tumor to an orthopedic patient's treating physicians where there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could determine the applicable standard and whether it had been violated. 215 N.J.Super. at 357-59, 521 A.2d 1323. The Court noted that defendants' non-expert witness testimony established that regardless of any radiology department protocol, the exigencies of various medical situations required different modes of communicating radiology results as a matter of course, ranging from giving notice of benign findings through regular administrative channels, to the radiologist's immediate and direct notice to the patient's primary care physician of any unusual findings. Id. at 355-57, 521 A.2d 1323. In that context, we concluded that "modes of communication are not so peculiarly within the expertise and knowledge of the medical profession as to necessitate expert testimony," and that the trier of fact should have been permitted to decide on the non-expert testimony whether the radiologist breached his duty of care to effectively communicate the dire discovery by merely issuing an abnormal finding report which was to be affixed to the patient's hospital chart, but became "lost in the shuffle" for several months. Id. at 357, 521 A.2d 1323.