First Principles of Business Law

7. Terms implied by law into particular kinds of contract

7.2. Contracts for professional services

Read the facts and the question and then choose the best answer.

A, who is feeling ill, consults B, a doctor. B agrees to provide treatment, examines A, and correctly diagnoses the cause of the disease. Either of two approved drugs could be used to treat A's illness. B prescribes the one produced by a drug company that sponsors B's sports club. The drug chosen is known to be ineffectual in a small but unpredictable number of cases. A proves to be one of those cases. The other drug would have worked better. A says that, by choosing a drug that might not work, B has breached a contractual duty, imposed by law, to act in her patient's best interests.

Is B in breach of a term of the contract, requiring her to act in A's best interests?

(a) Yes. The law makes it a term of a doctor and patient contract that the doctor act in the patient's best interests.

(b) No. The law does not make it a term of a doctor and patient contract that the doctor act in the patient's best interests.