Boeckel v. Orange Mem'l Hosp.

• Decision Date: 19 February 1932
• Docket Number: No. 33.,33.
• Citation: 158 A. 832
• Parties: BOECKEL et al. v. ORANGE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

158 A. 832

BOECKEL et al.

v. ORANGE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.

No. 33.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Feb. 19, 1932.

Syllabus by the Court.

The rule, enunciated in D'Amato v. Orange Memorial Hospital, 101 N. J. Law, 61, 127 A. 340, that public policy requires that a charitable institution maintaining a hospital be held not liable for injuries resulting to patients through the negligence or carelessness of its physicians and nurses, extended to apply to a patient's mother who, in visiting the patient at such institution, was injured allegedly as a result of the negligence of the supervising nurse.

Action by Isabella Boeckel and another against the Orange Memorial Hospital. Verdict for plaintiffs. On defendant's rule to show cause why the verdict should not be set aside and a new trial ordered.

Rule made absolute.

Argued October term, 1931, before GUMMERE, C. J., and PARKER and CASE, JJ.

Quinn, Parsons & Doremus, of Red Bank (John J. Quinn, of Red Bank, of counsel), for plaintiffs.

Collins & Corbin, of Jersey City (Edward A. Markley and Howard F. McIntyre, both of Jersey City, of counsel), for defendant.

CASE, J.

This suit in the Supreme Court, Monmouth circuit, to recover for personal injuries sustained by Isabella Boeckel and for consequential damages suffered by her husband and co-plaintiff, Louis Boeckel, resulted in verdicts in their favor of $6,000 and $1,500, respectively. The case comes up on defendant's rule to show cause why the verdicts should not be set aside and a new trial ordered.

Mrs. John M. Grimes, daughter of the plaintiffs, was a patient at defendant's hospital. On the evening of October 29, 1929, Mrs. Boeckel, while leaving the hospital after visiting her daughter, slipped and fell on the stairs, receiving the injuries sued upon. The cause for the fall was alleged to be a wetness or foreign substance upon the stairs, making them dangerous and slippery. Although plaintiffs' brief recites as a fact that the stairway was rendered slippery by soapsuds, the evidence does not disclose what the substance was or how it got there. Plaintiff's son-in-law testified that when he and the plaintiff came in "there was a white substance there, something like soap or something, I couldn't say what it was," and that when he left, separate from and earlier than the plaintiff, the steps were still in the same wet or damp condition. The injured plaintiff testified that the steps "were wet because they still had that glossy look on them and (I) might have slipped on them." The contention is that one Miss Funk, supervising nurse, was in charge of the premises, including the steps, and that failure on her part to discover the alleged substance was negligence imputable to the defendant; and, more generally, that the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff, a visitor during the regular visiting hours, to exercise ordinary care to render halls and stairways reasonably safe for use. However, aside from the undefined moisture which it is said the supervising nurse should have discovered, there was no evidence that the defendant had not met the duty thus charged against it; which brings the question of liability back to that of the supervising nurse's alleged neglect. It is not contended that the defendant failed to exercise due care in the employment of its agents and employees.

The first point presented by the defendant is that the court below erred in refusing to direct a verdict for the defendant upon the ground that the defendant is a charitable institution organized and existing not for pecuniary profit and, therefore, not liable.

Defendant is admittedly a charitable institution maintaining a hospital. It has been held by our Court of Errors and Appeals that such an institution, by public policy, shall not be held liable for injuries resulting to patients, even pay patients, through the negligence or carelessness of its physicians and nurses. D'Amato v. Orange Memorial Hospital, 101 N. J. Law, 61, 127 A. 340. To the extent of the holding that pronouncement is controlling. Also, the logic of its reasoning is for our enlightenment in correlated circumstances. Applying that principle to a pertinent hypothesis in the instant case, if the patient, Mrs. Grimes, daughter of the plaintiff, had been injured as she was leaving the...