Informed consent within court decision making is a complex linkage of information and a patient's assent to (approval of) a medical intervention that the patient's physician is recommending in the patient's care, based on that physician's disclosure of the information. The complexity of linkage of consent and assent (approval) relates to the nature and depth of the information disclosure required of physicians by the courts.

The term informed consent did not enter the judicial lexicon until 1957 when the term appeared in a California appellate decision, Salgo v. Leland[Page 623]Stanford Junior Board of Trustees. The judge in the Salgo decision simply used the term informed consent without defining it.