Chapel v. Allison

Lawrence Chapel (plaintiff) went to the emergency room with a broken leg from a horse kick. Dr. James Allison (defendant), a non-board-certified general practitioner, put a long leg cast on Chapel to fix the break. When the cast was removed, Chapel had a leg deformity commonly referred to as a bowed leg. There was some dispute about whether Chapel’s leg was bowed prior to the break. Chapel then had another surgery to fix the bow. Chapel sued Allison for medical malpractice, arguing that Allison’s fix had caused the leg deformity. Chapel’s standard-of-care expert was from outside Montana but had consulted with one local Montana doctor. Chapel’s expert testified that a general practitioner would not generally fix a broken leg and should send the patient to an orthopedic specialist or at least consult with a specialist before proceeding with this treatment. Allison argued that Chapel’s proposed standard of care did not take local factors into consideration. Allison claimed that Chapel’s standard lumped rural doctors with city doctors, which ended up holding rural general practitioners to the same high standards as specialists of whatever body part or procedure was involved. The trial court ruled that standard of care was limited to similar communities within the state of Montana. The trial court then decided that Chapel’s expert had not provided a standard of care that was sufficiently tailored to Montana and dismissed the case. Chapel appealed.