Tobia v. Cooper Hospital University Medical Center

This appeal concerns a class of medical patients whose inability to care for themselves may require an extra measure of care by health-care professionals. The medical professions recognize the existence of such a duty in the case of certain patients whose infirmity, be it the product of age, substance abuse, or mental derangement, may pose a danger of either intentional or unintentional self-injury. The issue before us is how to relate that infirmity of the patient to the doctrine of contributory negligence.

In Cowan v. Doering, 111 N.J. 451, 545 A.2d 159 (1988), we held that a health-care…