Capolupo v. Wills

Decision Date20 December 1932
Citation163 A. 454,116 Conn. 13
CourtConnecticut Supreme Court
PartiesCAPOLUPO v. WILLS.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Newell Jennings Judge.

Action by Fiore Capolupo against Albert C. Wills for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by negligent treatment in a dental operation, brought to the superior court and tried to a jury; verdict for the plaintiff; motion to set aside verdict denied, and judgment entered on the verdict; and the defendant appealed.

Error and new trial ordered.

Evidence of dentist's negligence in caring for plaintiff after breaking off needle in plaintiff's jaw held insufficient for jury where plaintiff had no medical testimony.

Nathaniel R. Bronson, of Waterbury, for appellant.

Charles S. Hamilton, of New Haven, for appellee.

HAINES, J.

The complaint alleges that the defendant was negligent and unskillful in the use of a hypodermic needle used in an effort to anesthetize the plaintiff's jaw, to remove a tooth, and in what was afterward done, although the allegations upon the latter phase of the matter are obscure and of doubtful sufficiency. The trial court, however, looked upon the complaint as setting up a right of recovery on each of these two features of the case. No effort was made by the defendant to obtain a more specific statement or to challenge the sufficiency of the complaint as drawn, and we consider the appeal in the light of the situation thus presented to us. The record evidence discloses that the defendant, a practicing dentist in Waterbury, undertook, in the early evening of December 8, 1927, at the request of the plaintiff to extract a tooth from the front of the plaintiff's lower jaw. He attempted to obtain anesthesia by an injection at a point back of the teeth on the right side of the plaintiff's jaw, directed at the opening of the inferior dental nerve. In the process the needle was broken off, and the detached portion still remains in the plaintiff's jaw.

The evidence was that, after the needle broke off and after trying unsuccessfully for more than three hours to obtain an X-ray picture which would show the location of the needle, the defendant probed and cut deeply into the tissues, in his effort to find and remove it, and finally gave up the attempt, and told the plaintiff to put on some liquid which he furnished him and sent him home; that the jaw swelled and he was feverish and in pain all night and unable to sleep, and returned to the defendant on several successive days, but on each occasion was told to continue the use of the liquid and not to worry, as he would be all right. He further testified that, upon the advice of his family physician, he later went to a hospital in New Haven, where a surgical operation was performed in an unsuccessful effort to remove the needle, which still remained in his jaw at the time of the trial of this case.

The medical evidence for the plaintiff showed he had a partial paralysis of the tongue on the right side so far as its sensory capacity was concerned though not as to motor capacity; that when water was held in the right side of the mouth, the plaintiff drooled somewhat, and when he spoke there was a slight pulling over of his lips to the left, and the biting capacity of the teeth was less on the right than on the left side of the jaws, and there were abnormal sensations in the nerves in the right side. These conditions were ascribed by the plaintiff's medical evidence to a traumatic injury to the inferior dental nerve, and caused by disturbing, injuring, or cutting, or other surgical interference with that nerve occurring in the effort to remove the needle. The jury could reasonably have so found.

With all the evidence before the jury the...

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9 cases
  • Pedigo v. Roseberry
    • United States
    • Missouri Supreme Court
    • March 11, 1937
    ...83 Mich. 31, 47 N.W. 210; Spensley v. Lancashire Ins. Co., 22 N.W. 740; Roberts v. Parker, 121 Cal.App. 264, 8 P.2d 908; Capolupo v. Wills, 116 Conn. 13, 163 A. 454; Jackovach v. Yocum, 212 Iowa 914, 237 N.W. Fink v. Steele, 171 A. 49; Winters v. Rance, 251 N.W. 167; Van Epps v. McKenny, 18......
  • Collette v. Collette
    • United States
    • Connecticut Supreme Court
    • May 8, 1979
    ...text, see the discussion of various aspects of this issue in Green v. Stone, 119 Conn. 300, 306, 176 A. 123 (1934); Capolupo v. Wills, 116 Conn. 13, 17, 163 A. 454 (1932); Witkowski v. Goldberg, 115 Conn. 693, 696, 163 A. 413 (1932); Quackenbush v. Vallario, 114 Conn. 652, 657, 159 A. 893 (......
  • O'Meara v. Columbian Nat. Life Ins. Co.
    • United States
    • Connecticut Supreme Court
    • April 3, 1935
    ... ... 677, 679, 122 A. 562; Slimak v. Foster, 106 ... Conn. 366, 368, 138 A. 153; Quackenbush v. Vallario, ... 114 Conn. 652, 657, 159 A. 893; Capolupo v. Wills, ... 116 Conn. 13, 17, 163 A. 454; Witkowski v. Goldberg, ... 115 Conn. 693, 696, 163 A. 413. The only medical testimony ... bearing upon ... ...
  • Marchlewski v. Casella
    • United States
    • Connecticut Supreme Court
    • June 23, 1954
    ...The evidence of experts is ordinarily necessary. Haliburton v. General Hospital Society, 133 Conn. 61, 65, 48 A.2d 261; Capolupo v. Wills, 116 Conn. 13, 17, 163 A. 454; Slimak v. Foster, 106 Conn. 366, 368, 138 A. 153. The only exception is to be found in those instances where there is mani......
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