Adams v. University Hospital

• Decision Date: 14 January 1907
• Citation: 99 S.W. 453,122 Mo.App. 675
• Parties: JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, Respondent, v. UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, Appellant
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

99 S.W. 453

122 Mo.App. 675

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, Respondent, v. UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, Appellant

Court of Appeals of Missouri, Kansas City

January 14, 1907

Appeal from Jackson Circuit Court.--Hon. John G. Park, Judge.

REVERSED.

Judgment reversed.

Boyle Guthrie & Smith for appellant.

(1) There was no evidence of any negligence under any law whether applicable to charities or otherwise. Gorson v Mfg. Co., 186 Mo. l. c. 307; Caudle v. Kirkbridge, 117 Mo.App. l. c. 417. (2) A charitable corporation is liable neither for the negligence of its servants nor negligence in the selection of servants. Ins. Patrol v. Boyd, 120 Pa. St. 624; Wiliamson v. Industrial School, 95 Ky. 251; Perry v. House of Refugees, 63 Md. 20; Parks v. Northwestern University, 218 Ill. 381; Hearns v. Waterbury Hospital, 66 Conn. 98; Downes v. Harper Hospital, 101 Mich. 555; McDonald v. Hospital, 120 Mass. 482; Joel v. Hospital, 89 Hun 73; Benton v. Trustees, 140 Mass. 13; Maia v. Eastern Hospital, 97 Va. 507. (3) There was no evidence that the hospital was negligent in the selection of competent servants. (4) If the servants were incompetent, Adams through his physician, his representative in that respect, was equally culpable with the hospital in assuming their competency.

Haff & Michaels, L. W. McCandless and D. C. Ketchum for respondent.

(1) The injuries sustained by respondent were occasioned by the negligence of appellant's nurses, and not otherwise: The maxim, "res ipsa loquitur," applies. Dougherty v. Railroad, 9 Mo.App. 478; s. c., 81 Mo. 325; Hill v. Scott, 38 Mo.App. 370; Gallagher v. Edison I. Co., 72 Mo.App. 576; Sackewitz v. Mfg. Co., 78 Mo.App. 144; Raney v. Lachance, 96 Mo.App. 479; Blanton v. Dold, 109 Mo. 64; Dorsey v. Railroad, 83 Mo.App. 528; Shuler v. Railroad, 87 Mo.App. 618; Moorman v. Railroad, 105 Mo.App. 711; Olsen v. Railroad, 152 Mo. 426. (2) The law is settled that a hospital is liable for furnishing incompetent servants. Holmes on the Common Law, 7, 35; Glavin v. Hospital, 12 R. I. 411; Murtaugh v. St. Louis, 44 Mo. 479; Haggerty v. Railroad, 100 Mo.App. 424; 15 Am. and Eng. Encyl. of Law (2 Ed.), 763; Laubheim v. Steamboat Co., 107 N.Y. 228; Railroad v. Artist, 60 F. 365; McDonald v. Hospital, 120 Mass. 432; Joel v. Hospital, 89 Hun 73; Hearns v. Hospital, 66 Conn. 98. (3) The nurses were negligent and incompetent and the evidence showed it. Holladay v. Kennard, 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) 254; The Elton, 131 F. 562. (4) Adams did not assume the nurses' incompetency.

OPINION

ELLISON, J.

--The plaintiff was a patient at the defendant's hospital, whither he had gone to have a surgical operation performed upon him. While yet under the influence of an anesthetic, administered for the purpose of the operation and after the performance of the operation, he was placed in the charge and care of one or more of defendant's nurses, who, it is charged, were not competent and by reason thereof they permitted him to be severely burned on the legs by rubber bottles filled with hot water whereby he was painfully and permanently injured. He brought the present action against the defendant for damages and prevailed in the trial court.

Serious injury to plaintiff was shown and the defendant's main contention is that it is a benevolent or charitable institution and as such is not liable to an action for damages caused by the acts of its employees; that, as such an institution, it is exempt from application of the doctrine of respondent superior. Defendant insists that it is neither liable for the negligence of its servants, nor for its own negligence, if any, in undertaking to select competent servants. Upon the other hand, the plaintiff contends that there is liability, if there was negligence either of the servant, or of the defendant in selecting a competent servant.

We will say, at the outset, that if defendant's liability is to be ascribed to the negligence of its nurses, the manner of his injury was such as to authorize the rule of res ipsa loquitur to be invoked. [Olsen v. Railroad, 152 Mo. 426; Johnson v. Railroad, 104 Mo.App. 588; Dougherty v. Railroad, 9 Mo.App. 478.] And if such liability is to be based upon the negligence of defendant in selecting competent nurses, that rule will also apply. For, in either case, the injury is, of itself, a sufficient showing, unexplained, that it resulted from one or the other of these sources of negligence, and we see no reason why the defendant (if liable at all) should not be held to be obliged to exculpate itself by showing, in the latter instance, that it had used proper care in the selection of its nurses, as it would in the former by showing that the nurses had not themselves been negligent.

If the questions made in this case have been heretofore decided in this State, it has escaped our attention. No case has been cited. That of Murtaugh v. City of St. Louis, 44 Mo. 479, involved the liability of a municipality for injuries received in a city hospital and it was held that the city was not liable. The decision is put upon the ground that a city is not liable for acts of its officers in administering a corporate franchise conferred for the general public good. That of Haggerty v. Railroad, 100 Mo.App. 424, did not involve the question of the exemption of charitable institutions. The St. Louis Court of Appeals ruled that a department organized by the railway company, known as the relief department, was not a charity, but that it was merely a business arrangement of the employees of the company. The question as presented here relates to the liability of a private, or quasiprivate, charity for damages caused by the negligent acts of its employees, or by its own negligent act in employing incompetent employees.

We will assume that the evidence tends to show the plaintiff was injured either by the negligence of one of defendant's nurses or by her incompetence. If by the latter, we will assume, for the purpose of disposing of the case, that there is enough in the record to justify a verdict that the defendant was careless in selecting her. But as, in our opinion, the defendant is neither liable for the negligence of one of its employees, nor for its own negligence in selecting an incompetent employee, it can make no difference which of the two acts caused the injury. Every member of the public is interested in the building up and maintenance of a charitable institution designed for the alleviation of human suffering; and every one may be supposed to be concerned in such institution, and to be a party to a line of action or conduct which would disable every other from doing anything which has a tendency to prevent the institution from performing the functions intended by its founder. The State itself is concerned that its citizens may be restored to health, and to that end may have places always open where those in need may obtain relief. So it may be said that any citizen who accepts the service of such institution (it making no difference whether in any special instance he pays his way) does so upon the ground, or the implied assurance, that he will assert no complaint which has for its object, or perhaps we should say, for its result, a total or partial destruction of the institution itself. If an organization for charitable purposes, founded upon the bounty of others who supply funds for the purpose of administering relief to those in need of relief, and of extending aid, care and protection to those who have no one to call upon by the ties of nature, may have its funds diverted from such kindly purpose, would it not inevitably, operate to close the purposes of the generous and benevolent who now do much to relieve the suffering of mankind? Let us see what the practical result might be. With a view of supplying care, protection and education to dependent children without parents, some good man puts in trust for building an orphans' home the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars; and for its perpetual maintenance the further sum of one hundred thousand dollars, to be put at interest or otherwise invested. The trustees may unfortunately without proper inquiry or care employ an incompetent servant. That servant, in the first year's existence of the home, may, from ignorance, or from negligence, do, or omit to do, something causing damage which, under our liberal measure of compensation for personal injuries, would be sufficient to take up the whole fund, and thus, for a single mishap, the generous object of the donor would be thwarted; and what was intended as perpetual relief to succeeding generations of helpless children would be wiped out. That funds supporting organizations for charity cannot be thus diverted, in other words, that charitable institutions or corporations are not liable for the negligence of an employee, nor for the want of care in the selection of an employee is sustained by authority and by reason.

The question arose in England and was decided in the House of Lords. [Heriot's Hospital v. Ross, 12 Clark & F 507.] In that case Heriot, a jeweler, by his will, in the year 1623, left a large part of his estate to certain officers of the city of Edinburgh in perpetuity for the founding and maintaining a hospital for the "maintenance, relief, bringing up and education of so many poor fatherless boys, freemen's sons of that town, as the means which I give, and the yearly value of the lands so purchased shall amount and come unto." The hospital was to be governed by rules formulated by a certain doctor named in the will. The rules, as framed, admitted to the hospital boys between certain ages. More than two hundred years after it was founded, a boy, alleging that he was wrongfully excluded, brought his action against the foeffees of the hospital in their official capacity, for...