Judge Dismisses Child-Abuse Negligence Suit : Courts: Ruling says law shields whistle-blowers from liability. Parents allege doctor failed to conduct probe into drugs in baby.

A Newport Beach doctor who reported a former Long Beach woman for suspected child abuse after her baby was born with drugs in his system had no obligation to investigate the truth of the charge, even though it later proved to be false, a judge ruled Friday.

Saying “I really have no choice” under the law, Superior Court Judge Robert J. Polis dismissed a 1991 lawsuit by Laura and Keith Hodgdon. The couple alleged that Dr. K. Mark Vuchinich was negligent in refusing to look into whether the infant’s positive drug test was caused by cold medications the mother was given in the hospital.

An “umbrella of immunity” protects doctors and others required by law to report child abuse from liability, and this shield is “meant to be absolute,” Polis said. He said that the law does not require such reporters to verify the charges, and it even protects them when a false report is filed out of malice.

The ruling--which Hodgdon’s attorney, Kenneth A. Roberts said he most likely will appeal--came in a case considered by some legal scholars to pose an intriguing challenge to the state’s sweeping child-abuse reporting laws.

The immunity law is intended to encourage reports by certain professionals--such as doctors--who otherwise might keep quiet for fear of being sued, experts say. It serves an important public policy goal, they say, by erring on the side of protecting children from abuse.

The question in the Hodgdon case was whether the immunity offered under the law extended to the doctor’s interactions with his patient, Laura Hodgdon, who contends she specifically asked Vuchinich to investigate the validity of the report.

Vuchinich’s attorney, David J. Ozeran, who asked the judge to dismiss the case Friday, argued that the immunity is “broad and absolute,” covering both the report and anything related to it.

Roberts said the umbrella of immunity did not cover Vuchinich’s alleged negligence in refusing to check Hodgdon’s chart for the cold drugs or his failure to alert child protection authorities that these medications had been prescribed. Roberts said Vuchinich prescribed some of the drugs himself.

“My question in this case . . . is whether this absolute immunity extends to the point of granting the physician the authority to abandon his patient,” Roberts said.

Polis said that the infant’s positive drug test and Hodgdon’s history of substance abuse arguably gave him probable cause to suspect child abuse.

Roberts said earlier this week that Laura Hodgdon had been sober for several years before her child’s birth in January, 1991, at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, and she had spoken out on television and in other public settings on drug and alcohol recovery.

But Polis said that once he suspected abuse, the doctor was obligated under the law to report the case to authorities. California law requires doctors and other designated professionals to report any “reasonable suspicion” of child abuse; failure to do so is a misdemeanor.

If the doctor was obligated to report the case under the law, he also falls under its broad protections, Polis said.

“I think his umbrella of immunity (covering the abuse report) also covers him for any alleged breach of duty to the mom,” he said.