Alston v. Granville Health Sys.

• Decision Date: 19 June 2012
• Docket Number: No. COA11–1522.,COA11–1522.
• Citation: 727 S.E.2d 877
• Parties: Carl ALSTON, as Administrator of the Estate of Jearlene Alston, Plaintiff, v. GRANVILLE HEALTH SYSTEM (Formerly Granville Medical Center, A County Owned Hospital and Agency of Granville County), Granville Medical Center Board of Trustees, and Dr. Reginald Hall, Defendants.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

727 S.E.2d 877

Carl ALSTON, as Administrator of the Estate of Jearlene Alston, Plaintiff,

v.GRANVILLE HEALTH SYSTEM (Formerly Granville Medical Center, A County Owned Hospital and Agency of Granville County), Granville Medical Center Board of Trustees, and Dr. Reginald Hall, Defendants.

No. COA11–1522.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

June 19, 2012.

Appeal by Plaintiff from orders entered 26 May and 9 June 2011 by Judge Henry W. Hight, Jr., in Granville County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 24 April 2012.

D. Lynn Whitted, Goldsboro, for Plaintiff.

Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan, L.L.P., Raleigh, by Timothy P. Lehan and Bryan A. McGann, for Defendants Granville Health System and Granville Medical Center Board of Trustees.

Young Moore and Henderson, P.A., Raleigh, by William P. Daniell, Elizabeth P. McCullough, Kelly E. Street, and Michelle A. Greene, for Defendant Dr. Reginald Hall.

STEPHENS, Judge.

Plaintiff Carl Alston, administrator of the estate of Jearlene Alston, commenced this action in Granville County Superior Court against Defendants Granville Health System, Granville Medical Center Board of Trustees, and Dr. Reginald Hall, seeking to hold Defendants liable for injuries Jearlene Alston (“Decedent”) sustained while she allegedly was a patient under Defendants' medical care. Upon Defendants' motions, the trial court subsequently dismissed Plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim pursuant to North Carolina Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). In Alston v. Granville Health Sys., No. COA09–1540, 207 N.C.App. 264, 699 S.E.2d 478, 2010 WL 3633738, 2010 N.C.App. LEXIS 1838 (Sept. 21, 2010), this Court reversed the dismissal, holding that Plaintiff had sufficiently pled a prima facie case of negligence based on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur to survive Defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motions.

On remand, and following a brief period of discovery, Defendants filed motions for summary judgment. The evidence presented in connection with Defendants' motions tended to show the following: When Defendant Dr. Hall performed surgery on Decedent at Defendant Granville Medical Center, Decedent was under anesthesia and was restrained during the surgery, and Dr. Hall did not remove the restraint following the surgery. When Dr. Hall “stepped away from the operative table” “to write [his] operative note,” “the anesthesiologist and/or [Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists] was/were responsible for [Decedent's] care.” Those anesthesiological personnel “used [their] anesthesia training and experience in making the determination as to whether [Decedent's] restraint could safely be removed.” At some point after surgery, the anesthesiological personnel removed Decedent's restraint. Thereafter, Decedent “quickly flipped or fell off of the right side of the [operating] table.” Decedentwas injured when she fell and passed away several years later.

Following the hearing, the trial court, the Honorable Henry W. Hight, Jr., presiding, granted summary judgment for Defendants. Plaintiff appeals.

On appeal, Plaintiff first argues that the trial court's decision to grant summary judgment for Defendants was erroneous because Defendants' motions for summary judgment were attempts by Defendants to “re-litigate the very same issues that were litigated ... in the context of their [ ] motions to dismiss ... and which were ultimately decided by the [ ] Court of Appeals,” and the trial court's ruling on those motions violated the “law of the case” doctrine. This argument is meritless.

[A]s a general rule when an appellate court passes on a question and remands the cause for further proceedings, the questions there settled become the law of the case, both in subsequent proceedings in the trial court and on subsequent appeal, provided the same facts and the same questions which were determined in the previous appeal are involved in the second appeal.

Hayes v. Wilmington, 243 N.C. 525, 536, 91 S.E.2d 673, 681–82 (1956) (emphasis added). In this case, the question determined by this Court in the first appeal is not the same question addressed by the trial court in its summary judgment order and now before this Court in this appeal.

It is well settled that

[t]he test on a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) is whether the pleading is legally sufficient. The test on a motion for summary judgment made under Rule 56 and supported by matters outside the pleadings is whether on the basis of the materials presented to the court there is any genuine issue as to any material fact and whether the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Therefore, the denial of a motion to dismiss made under Rule 12(b)(6) does not prevent the court ... from thereafter allowing a subsequent motion for summary judgment made and supported as provided in Rule 56.

Barbour v. Little, 37 N.C.App. 686, 692, 247 S.E.2d 252, 255–56 (1978). Accordingly, although in the first appeal we held that Plaintiff's complaint, considered on its own and taking its allegations as true,¹ sufficiently set forth a claim of negligence under the theory of res ipsa loquitur, the trial court was not precluded from thereafter determining that “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that any party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” N.C. Gen.Stat. § 1A–1, Rule 56(c) (2011). Plaintiff's argument is overruled.

Plaintiff next argues that the trial court's ruling was erroneous because Defendants were not entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff's negligence claim alleging the application of res ipsa loquitur. We disagree.

The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur applies when “(1) direct proof of the cause of an injury is not available, (2) the instrumentality involved in the accident is under the defendant's control, and (3) the injury is of a type that does not ordinarily occur in the absence of some negligent act or omission.” Grigg v. Lester, 102 N.C.App. 332, 333, 401 S.E.2d 657, 657–58 (1991) (citation omitted). In our previous opinion, we held that Plaintiff “alleged sufficient facts to establish a prima facie case of negligence under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur to survive Defendants' 12(b)(6) motion.” We concluded that, taken as true, Plaintiff's allegations “that it is unknown how Decedent fell off the gurney; that Decedent and the gurney were under Defendants' control; and that this injury would not have occurred in the absence of negligence” satisfied the elements of a res ipsa loquitur claim. On remand, however, Defendants presented evidence showing that res ipsa loquitur is not applicable because there is evidence that direct proof of the cause of Decedent's injury is available.

According to evidence offered by Defendants, as Decedent was regaining consciousness after undergoing anesthesia, she “quickly flipped or fell off” the operating table. At the time, Decedent was still unconscious and was unrestrained. In an affidavit offered by Defendants, a board-certified anesthesiologist opined that Decedent slipped from the operating table as a result of her “suddenly moving on the operative table” in reaction to her realization of “the presence of the intubation tube” in her throat. Various other affidavits tend to show that the cause of Decedent's fall from the table was the failure of the medical personnel to restrain Decedent. Furthermore, Plaintiff offered nothing to refute Defendants' forecast of evidence on why Decedent fell off the table, and, indeed, asserts in his pleading that Decedent's injuries were “caused diretly [sic]” by medical personnel's failure “to make sure that [Decedent] was securely strapped to the operating table.” ²

“Our Court has held that the res ipsa loquitur doctrine is only applicable where there is no direct proof of the cause of the injury available to the plaintiff.” Yorke v. Novant Health, Inc., 192 N.C.App. 340, 352, 666 S.E.2d 127, 136 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). As such, where evidence constituting direct proof of the cause of injury is presented, “the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur [is] not applicable.” Id. at 353, 666 S.E.2d at 136.

In Yorke, the plaintiff consistently identified an overly-tightened blood pressure cuff as the source of his injury. Id. In Rowell v. Bowling, 197 N.C.App. 691, 697, 678 S.E.2d 748, 752 (2009), the evidence pointed to incisions made by the defendant in the plaintiff's knee as the cause of her injury. In each case, we held that the existence...