Title: Helling v. Carey 83 Wash. 2d 514, 519 P.2d 981 (1974)
Procedure: The plaintiff Helling, a patient, appealed from a judgment of the Court of Appeals (state of Washington) affirming the judgment of the trial court for defendant ophthalmologists in a medical malpractice action involving the ophthalmologists' failure to timely administer a glaucoma test. This case was heard in the Supreme Court in Washington state.
Issue or issues: The issue was whether the ophthalmologists' compliance with the standard of the profession of ophthalmology, that did not require the giving of a routine pressure test to persons under 40 years of age, insulated them from liability.
Facts: The patient, who was 32 years of age when she was diagnosed with glaucoma, sued the ophthalmologists, alleging that she suffered severe and permanent damage to her eyes as the proximate result of the ophthalmologists' negligence in failing timely administer a pressure test for glaucoma. Both the trial and appellate courts ruled in favor of the ophthalmologists.
Holding: The Washington Supreme Court held, as a matter of law, that the reasonable standard that should have been followed under the undisputed facts of this case was the timely giving of this simple, harmless pressure test to this plaintiff and that, in failing to do so, the defendants were negligent, which proximately resulted in the blindness sustained by the plaintiff for which the defendants are liable.
Analysis: After years of seeing Carey and Laughlin for what she believed were issues and irritation caused by her contact lenses, Carey tested her eye pressure and field of vision. It was determined that Helling, then 32-years-old, had glaucoma resulting in some loss of vision. Helling filed suit against Carey and Laughlin alleging, among other things, that defendants’ negligence proximately caused the permanent damage to her