Immunized Doctors

from Morrison v. MacNamara, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 1979.

Quite apart from the locality rule's irrelevance to contemporary medical practice, the doctrine is also objectionable because it tends to immunize doctors from communities where medical practice is generally below that which exists in other communities from malpractice liability.

They used to hold doctors not to a national standard, but to a standard deemed reasonable for a practitioner within their community. Of course that meant that in worse-off parts of the country, quacks got away with a lot: they were "immunized" from negligence.

The word choice suggests a cabal of Bruce Banner-like scientists in lab coats, treacherously taking disease-fighting strength from their patients and slowly becoming legally invincible.