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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower court's ruling that a doctor on the medical staff that treated a man who [shot and killed his wife](<http://www.ksl.com/?sid=10460643&fm=related_story&s_cid=article-related-1 target=>) did not have a duty to the couple's children.
On Jan. 6, 2008, David Ragsdale shot and killed his wife, Kristy Ragsdale, in a Lehi church parking lot. He was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Ragsdale's two children — then ages 3 and 6 — filed a lawsuit against those treating their father, whom it was determined was taking various medications at the time including Concerta, pregnenolone, testosterone, Valium, and the antidepressants Doxepin and Paxil.
Attorneys for the children argued negligence on the part of those prescribing the medications that prompted his violent acts, including the nurse practitioner who wrote Ragsdale's prescriptions, her consulting physician, the medical clinic where the two worked and various other employees of the clinic.
In 2012, the Utah Supreme Court reversed a lower court's ruling and determined the nurse practitioner did have a duty to the couple's children and was negligent in prescribing the drugs.
But in Friday's ruling, the Supreme Court decided the doctor who was listed as the nurse practitioner's "consulting physician" did not have the same liability.
"We accordingly affirm the dismissal of the only claim that was preserved and argued below, without reaching the question whether a physician might have an affirmative duty to agree to a statutorily sufficient consultation plan, or to consult in accordance with the terms of any plan," the state's high court wrote in its ruling.
