Child Abuse Report Law to Be Tested : Courts: State statute protects those who alert authorities. But couple say doctor had duty to conduct proper investigation.

A lawsuit set for hearing Friday alleges that a Newport Beach physician should be held accountable for failing to investigate the validity of a child abuse report he filed that turned out to be false, despite strong state laws protecting abuse reporters from liability.

In their suit, former Long Beach residents Laura M. and Keith Hodgdon say Dr. K. Mark Vuchinich reported her to child-protection authorities in 1991 after screening tests found her newborn son had drugs in his system. But, according to the suit filed in Orange County Superior Court, Vuchinich should have looked at Laura Hodgdon’s chart more closely: She had been given a series of cold medications, including Sudafed and Robitussin with codeine, which led to the misleading test result.

The couple maintain that they were slandered and subjected to emotional distress because Vuchinich refused to check the chart and failed to tell child-protection authorities that he himself had prescribed certain cold medications to Hodgdon. The boy was held at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian for several days and eventually released to his parents by another doctor, said the Hodgdons’ attorney, Kenneth A. Roberts of Irvine.

Vuchinich’s attorney, David J. Ozeran of Los Angeles, will argue Friday that the lawsuit should be dismissed. And the debate over his motion is likely to strike at the heart of what is intended by state laws governing child abuse.

Ozeran says the state law is quite clear in granting “broad and absolute” immunity to people required to report child abuse, such as doctors.

“We are immune even if we were wrong,” Ozeran said of the Hodgdon case. “The Legislature has decided that the interests of children are greater than the harm that might be suffered because of false reports.”

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The issue in the case is whether someone who reports suspicions of child abuse, as required by law, has any responsibility to look into the validity of the allegations.

Roberts said he is not contesting that Vuchinich’s abuse report is covered by the immunity law. He is, however, challenging the alleged refusal of the doctor, who was filling in for Hodgdon’s vacationing obstetrician, to follow up on his patient’s request to investigate a “simple explanation” for the infant’s positive drug test.

“How far does this (immunity law) go?” he said. “Does it extend to the point where the doctor’s duty to the patient can be abandoned? . . . Our argument is no . . . he refused a simple request of his patient. The child is not his patient. Laura Hodgdon, 39, was his patient. He has a duty to her.”

But several legal scholars said Wednesday that the law is intended to provide encouraging protections to abuse reporters who otherwise might not come forward for fear of being sued. And anyone who challenges the scope of that immunity in a lawsuit will face an uphill battle, they say.

The law mandates a report from doctors and other designated professionals when there is “a reasonable suspicion” abuse has occurred. Failure to report is a misdemeanor.

That means “you have to have specific, articulable grounds” for a report, said William Wesley Patton, director of the Center for Children’s Rights at Whittier Law School.

“But it doesn’t mean you have to do a full medical investigation,” he said.

Another problem for plaintiffs, he and others said, is that the law serves an important public policy goal of protecting society’s newest and most vulnerable members.

“The greater the burden of investigation, the more children will be at risk,” Patton said.

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Ozeran said higher courts have supported the concept of absolute immunity. He said a state appellate court in 1986 held that immunity applies to health-care providers and others required to report abuse even if their reports are negligent or knowingly false. In that decision, the court cited the state’s “strong interest in preventing child abuse.”

But Roberts argued that higher courts have issued contrary rulings.

There is legal pressure on medical providers from both directions, pushing them both to report abuse and to show caution.

Hoag, which was dropped from Hodgdon’s suit as a defendant, recently was sued by a woman who contended that the hospital and its doctors were negligent because they failed to report a 22-month-old boy’s skull fracture as suspected abuse. According to the suit, the boy was released to his mother’s boyfriend, Brian Laudenback, who later beat him to death.

A Hoag spokeswoman said the hospital was not negligent because it had no reason to suspect that the boy, Tyler Jaeger, had been abused. The injury was consistent with Laudenback’s explanation that the boy had fallen from a table and hit his head, Maureen Mazzatenta said. In addition, she said, the hospital released the boy to his mother, not Laudenback.

Times staff writer Susan Marquez Owen contributed to this story.