Angulo v. Hallar

• Decision Date: 02 December 1920
• Docket Number: 9.
• Citation: 112 A. 179,137 Md. 227
• Parties: ANGULO v. HALLAR.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

112 A. 179

137 Md. 227

ANGULO v. HALLAR.

No. 9.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

December 2, 1920

Appeal from Baltimore Court of Common Pleas; Charles W. Heuisler Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Action by Jennie Hallar against Juan J. Angulo. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed, without new trial.

Argued before BOYD, C.J., and BRISCOE, THOMAS, PATTISON STOCKBRIDGE, ADKINS, and OFFUTT, JJ.

Webster S. Blades, of Baltimore (Harry B. Wolf, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Harry O. Levin and M. Maurice Meyer, both of Baltimore, for appellee.

PATTISON J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the court of common pleas of Baltimore City recovered by the appellee, Jennie Hallar against the appellant, Dr. Juan J. Angulo (a dentist), for the alleged negligence and unskillfulness of his servant, or employee, in the extraction of the roots of a tooth of the appellee.

The record discloses that the plaintiff in November or December 1917, had Dr. McCann, a dentist of Baltimore City, extract one of her teeth. In April, 1918, trouble developed in the locality from which the tooth had been drawn and she suffered much pain therefrom, which she endured for a month or more, when on Sunday, the 4th day of May, 1918, she went to the office of Dr. Angulo, the defendant, to have him extract the roots which Dr. McCann had failed to take out in the extraction of the tooth by him. Upon entering the office of the defendant she asked for Dr. Angulo, but was told by one, who was afterwards learned to be Dr. Sandtler, that Dr. Angulo was not in, and he said to her, "What can I do for you?" to which the plaintiff replied:

"I have the toothache and I think I have got some roots. I had the tooth drawn, and I think there is some roots there left."

She was then asked why she had not gone to Dr. McCann, the one who had extracted her tooth and she said:

"I did not like to go down to him because he did not take the roots out in the first place, and he knew he left them there."

Dr. Angulo, she said, had some years before drawn some teeth for her, and they had given her no trouble, for which reason she had determined to have him (Dr. Angulo) extract the roots, which she thought was causing the pain from which she was suffering.

Dr. Sandtler then told her, as she says, "to sit down in the chair," which she did; that first he was inclined to the belief that the roots were not there, but upon further examination discovered them and proceeded to remove them. When he had concluded, he said to her, "All right, now you can get up." "So, I got up. I do not know how I got up, and I went over to the sink, washed my mouth out and I said, 'Doctor, I do not believe I can go home.' He said, 'I will fix you up,' and he gave me aspirin tablets, and he said, 'You take one of these,' so I took one at his office, and I went home." When she got home, her mouth was still bleeding and hurting her. It continued to bleed until 4 or 5 o'clock of the afternoon of that day when her jaw began to swell and the pain grew worse. To alleviate the trouble, she used salt water, as she had been told to do by Dr. Sandtler, but the swelling continued, and on the next day she called in Dr. France, her family physician, who came to her home about 10 o'clock in the morning of that day. At that time her mouth was not bleeding, but, as she says, the swelling "was getting worse all the time and she could not open her mouth." Dr. France looked in her mouth and gave her some medicine to relieve the pain. On the next day, Dr. France again called to see her. He felt her pulse and told her to "keep on taking the medicine he had prescribed on the previous day." About the third day after her visit to Dr. Angulo's office, she called him (Dr. Angulo) over the phone and told him of her trouble. In response thereto, he called to see her about 4 o'clock of the afternoon of that day, when he asked her: "What have you been doing? Who has been treating you?" She told him Dr. France, and he said, "You should have come to me," for she had been told by Dr. Sandtler that, if she were troubled with her mouth after her return home, she should, at once, come back to the office for treatment; to which she replied "well, I was not able to come to you, and I did not know what to do. I was so bad off that I called for the family physician." Dr. Angulo then returned to his office and got his syringe with which he syringed her mouth, and on the next day he again went to her home and again syringed her mouth. On this last visit, he told her there was a possibility of hemorrhages resulting from the condition of her mouth, and, to avoid that result, he told her she should do no work. But she said she had to do it, as she had no one else to do it for her. She testified that the treatment of Dr. Angulo, at the times referred to, neither reduced the pain nor the swelling. In her testimony, the plaintiff stated that Dr. France, after his visit on the 8th of May, did not again call upon her until sent for on the Sunday following to relieve her of a hemorrhage with which she was then suffering.

Upon seeing the plaintiff, Dr. France decided to take her to the hospital, and this was done on the afternoon of that day. Thereafter the plaintiff underwent two operations. The subsequent condition of the plaintiff, as well as the character and effect of the operations, both of which were performed by Dr. France, is fully stated in the testimony of Dr. France, so we think it unnecessary to further prolong this opinion with what was said by the plaintiff in relation thereto.

Dr France, when offered as a witness by the plaintiff, testified that about noon on the 5th day of May, 1918, he, at the request of the plaintiff, called at her home, and, from existing indications he found the plaintiff "had hemorrhages of her inferior dental artery," and her face much swollen. He was told of the fact that she had been to the office of the defendant, and had the roots of a tooth extracted. An examination of her mouth disclosed necrosis of the bone, or, as he expressed it, a rotting of the bone, and, as the result of it, not only had the muscles and the gums around the bone become involved but pus was exuding from the wound, and she, at the time, was running some temperature. He, at that time, curetted the bone, washed out the cavity and packed it with gauze, and endeavored to promote some drainage. On his next visit, the following day, he removed, as he says, quite a fragment of the jawbone. He attended her daily, thereafter; but, as he expressed it, "the field was progressive and increased in the face of his efforts to stay it." So on the 18th or 19th day of May, the plaintiff was carried to the hospital, and there, as the doctor says, "under general anaesthetics I curetted the jaw and endeavored to relieve the condition through an opening and scraped all the necrotic or...