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Cornerstone Hospital of Southeast Arizona v. Blackburn, 231 Ariz. 67, 290 P.3d 460 (App. 2012)

A.R.S. § 12-2604, not Rule 702 alone, governs the admissibility of medical standard-of-care evidence in a case brought under Arizona's Adult Protective Services Act, just as it does under the Medical Malpractice Act. The court reasoned that the interest in ensuring a witness giving medical standard-of-care testimony has sufficient expertise 'is no less compelling' in an action brought on behalf of a vulnerable adult than in an MMA action. A family cannot escape the expert-qualification requirement by recharacterizing a medical-negligence theory as elder neglect under APSA.

Cited on: Hospital Liability for a Fatal Pressure Ulcer in Arizona

Rasor v. Nw. Hosp., LLC (Rasor II), 243 Ariz. 160, 403 P.3d 572 (Ariz. 2017), affirming on this point Rasor v. Nw. Hosp., LLC (Rasor I), 239 Ariz. 546, 373 P.3d 563 (App. 2016)

In a claim that ICU nursing staff caused a stage IV pressure ulcer by failing to reposition/off-load a patient, the plaintiffs' board-certified wound-care nurse did NOT qualify under A.R.S. § 12-2604 to give standard-of-care testimony, because she had not devoted a majority of her professional time in the preceding year to the same specialty as the defendant's nurses (critical care). The expert-qualification statute is therefore a real threshold obstacle to this kind of nursing-negligence claim. The courts also held, however, that outright summary judgment was too harsh: the plaintiffs were entitled to additional time to secure a qualified standard-of-care expert, and on remand the same nurse was held competent to testify to CAUSATION even though unqualified on standard of care.

Cited on: Hospital Liability for a Fatal Pressure Ulcer in Arizona

Walk v. Ring, 202 Ariz. 310, 44 P.3d 990 (2002)

In a professional-malpractice action the limitations period does not begin to run merely because the plaintiff knows she was injured. The court expressly REFUSED the defendant's bright-line 'what and who' rule, holding instead that the 'what' is interpreted broadly enough to require knowledge that would put a reasonable patient or client on notice to investigate whether the injury may be attributable to a professional's negligence, and that when discovery and consequent accrual occurred is ordinarily a question for the jury rather than a matter of law.

Cited on: Wrongful Death From a Missed Bacterial Infection in Arizona