21.2.6 Professional Duties.

• Jurisdiction: Arizona

21.2.6 Professional Duties. Professionals and others who engage in activity requiring special skill are required to exercise reasonable care consistent with the care and skill of a reasonable, prudent person engaged in the particular profession or occupation.⁵⁹ Generally, expert testimony is necessary to determine the applicable standard of care and if there was a breach of that standard . ⁶⁰ Expert testimony, however, is not necessary if “the negligence is so grossly apparent that a layman would have no difficulty recognizing it.”⁶¹

Arizona Revised Statute § 12-563 states that a medical malpractice plaintiff must prove that the “health care provider failed to exercise that degree of care, skill and learning of a reasonable, prudent health care provider in the profession or class to which he belongs within the state acting in the same or similar manner.” A doctor is not liable, however, for mere mistakes in judgment. Rather, the doctor is only liable if his or her treatment fell below the standard of care.⁶² The applicable standard of care is that of a reasonable health care provider “in the profession or class to which [he or she] belongs.”⁶³ This means, of course, that each specialty is held to the standard of care of those in that specialty. The standard of care under the statute is a statewide standard. The standard, however, may be a uniform standard across the country . ⁶⁴

An attorney must represent his or her client in a reasonably careful and skillful manner in light of the attorney’s special professional knowledge . ⁶⁵ “The professional community whose practices and standards are relevant . . . is ordinarily that of lawyers undertaking similar...