Texas PJC Malpractice 2022

C HAPTER 60

N ONMEDICAL P ROFESSIONAL M ALPRACTICE — D EFINITIONS AND I NSTRUCTIONS

PJC 60.1

Nonmedical Professional’s Degree of Care; Proximate Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

PJC 60.2

New and Independent Cause—Nonmedical Professional . . . . . . 124

PJC 60.3

Sole Proximate Cause—Nonmedical Professional. . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Note Certain professions consist of members who hold themselves out as having superior knowledge, training, and skill. Such persons are held to a standard embodying this concept, a violation of which is called professional negligence or malpractice, which is expressed in terms of a similar professional acting or failing to act under the same or similar circumstances. Other types of professionals are held to the standard of reason ably prudent persons. Whether a particular profession falls within one standard or the other is a question of substantive law. When this book was prepared, the professions treated in chapters 60 and 61—law, accounting, and architecture—had been judicially recognized to be within the higher professional standard.

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