2019 Wisconsin Statutes & Annotations
Chapter 154. Advance directives.
154.07 Duties and immunities.

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.