Nancy Millsap, as the Special Administrator of the Estate of Robert Nash, Deceased, Appellant v. Victor Williams…

Summary

The court reversed and remanded for a new trial because the circuit court failed to properly instruct the jury on the actual-consent claim and instead gave informed-consent instructions that did not apply to the pleaded theory. The court held that the proffered instruction based on the consent-to-treatment statutes was warranted because no applicable model instruction existed and the evidence supported issues concerning refusal, mental capacity, and emergency consent. The court did not reach the sufficiency-of-the-evidence issue because the instructional error required a new trial. Justice Cliff Hoofman, dissenting, would have affirmed, reasoning that the instructions were supported by the evidence and that Millsap’s asserted grounds were not preserved.