SECTIONS 4740-4743 - California Statutes

PROBATE CODE

SECTION 4740-4743

4740. A health care provider or health care institution acting in
good faith and in accordance with generally accepted health care
standards applicable to the health care provider or institution is
not subject to civil or criminal liability or to discipline for
unprofessional conduct for any actions in compliance with this
division, including, but not limited to, any of the following
conduct:
(a) Complying with a health care decision of a person that the
health care provider or health care institution believes in good
faith has the authority to make a health care decision for a patient,
including a decision to withhold or withdraw health care.
(b) Declining to comply with a health care decision of a person
based on a belief that the person then lacked authority.
(c) Complying with an advance health care directive and assuming
that the directive was valid when made and has not been revoked or
terminated.
(d) Declining to comply with an individual health care instruction
or health care decision, in accordance with Sections 4734 to 4736,
inclusive.

4741. A person acting as agent or surrogate under this part is not
subject to civil or criminal liability or to discipline for
unprofessional conduct for health care decisions made in good faith.

4742. (a) A health care provider or health care institution that
intentionally violates this part is subject to liability to the
aggrieved individual for damages of two thousand five hundred dollars
($2,500) or actual damages resulting from the violation, whichever
is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees.
(b) A person who intentionally falsifies, forges, conceals,
defaces, or obliterates an individual's advance health care directive
or a revocation of an advance health care directive without the
individual's consent, or who coerces or fraudulently induces an
individual to give, revoke, or not to give an advance health care
directive, is subject to liability to that individual for damages of
ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or actual damages resulting from the
action, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees.
(c) The damages provided in this section are cumulative and not
exclusive of any other remedies provided by law.

4743. Any person who alters or forges a written advance health care
directive of another, or willfully conceals or withholds personal
knowledge of a revocation of an advance directive, with the intent to
cause a withholding or withdrawal of health care necessary to keep
the patient alive contrary to the desires of the patient, and thereby
directly causes health care necessary to keep the patient alive to
be withheld or withdrawn and the death of the patient thereby to be
hastened, is subject to prosecution for unlawful homicide as provided
in Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 187) of Title 8 of Part 1 of
the Penal Code.