154.07 Duties and immunities.

(1) Liability.

(a) No physician, inpatient health care facility or health care professional acting under the direction of a physician may be held criminally or civilly liable, or charged with unprofessional conduct, for any of the following:

1. Participating in the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures or feeding tubes under this subchapter.

2. Failing to act upon a revocation unless the person or facility has actual knowledge of the revocation.

3. Failing to comply with a declaration, except that failure by a physician to comply with a declaration of a qualified patient constitutes unprofessional conduct if the physician refuses or fails to make a good faith attempt to transfer the qualified patient to another physician who will comply with the declaration.

(b)

1. No person who acts in good faith as a witness to a declaration under this subchapter may be held civilly or criminally liable for participating in the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures or feeding tubes under this subchapter.

2. Subdivision 1. does not apply to a person who acts as a witness in violation of s. 154.03 (1).

(c) Pars. (a) and (b) apply to acts or omissions in connection with a provision of a document that is executed in another jurisdiction if the provision is valid and enforceable under s. 154.11 (9).

(2) Effect of declaration. The desires of a qualified patient who is competent supersede the effect of the declaration at all times. If a qualified patient is adjudicated incompetent at the time of the decision to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining procedures or feeding tubes, a declaration executed under this subchapter is presumed to be valid. The declaration of a qualified patient who is diagnosed as pregnant by the attending physician has no effect during the course of the qualified patient's pregnancy. For the purposes of this subchapter, a physician or inpatient health care facility may presume in the absence of actual notice to the contrary that a person who executed a declaration was of sound mind at the time.

History: 1983 a. 202; 1991 a. 84; 1995 a. 200; 2003 a. 290; 2005 a. 387.