Misdiagnosis Informed Consent Claim Disallowed by Virginia Court

A doctor’s failure to tell a patient that he may have misdiagnosed her can’t be used as the basis for a lawsuit alleging that the doctor violated a duty to obtain a patient’s informed consent, a Virginia appeals court said.

There’s no duty to disclose the risk of a misdiagnosis and alternative treatments that would be appropriate only if a correct diagnosis had been made, the Virginia Court of Appeals said in resolving a question of first impression in the state.

The court joined the majority of state courts that have considered the issue and determined that that the standard ...