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Emergency Law Inventory | Full Law Text

Law Number

N.C. Gen. Stat. 90-21.4

Summary Title

Liability: Physician Treating Minor without Consent

Summary

A physician who treats a minor without first obtaining valid consent for treatment will not be held legally responsible if the parents or guardians could not be contacted, or where delaying treatment of the minor, in order to obtain consent, would threaten the minor’s life.

Full Title

Responsibility, liability and immunity of physicians

Full Text

(a) Any physician licensed to practice medicine in North Carolina providing health services to a minor under the terms, conditions and circumstances of this Article shall not be held liable in any civil or criminal action for providing such services without having obtained permission from the minor's parent, legal guardian, person standing in loco parentis, or a legal custodian other than a parent when granted specific authority in a custody order to consent to medical or psychiatric treatment. The physician shall not be relieved on the basis of this Article from liability for negligence in the diagnosis and treatment of a minor. (b) The physician shall not notify a parent, legal guardian, person standing in loco parentis, or a legal custodian other than a parent when granted specific authority in a custody order to consent to medical or psychiatric treatment, without the permission of the minor, concerning the medical health services set out in G.S. 90-21.5(a), unless the situation in the opinion of the attending physician indicates that notification is essential to the life or health of the minor. If a parent, legal guardian[,] person standing in loco parentis, or a legal custodian other than a parent when granted specific authority in a custody order to consent to medical or psychiatric treatment contacts the physician concerning the treatment or medical services being provided to the minor, the physician may give information.

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