Chapman v. Radcliffe, 21516.

• Decision Date: 14 January 1932
• Docket Number: No. 21516.,21516.
• Citation: 162 S.E. 651,44 Ga.App. 649
• Parties: CHAPMAN. v. RADCLIFFE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

44 Ga.App. 649

162 S.E. 651

CHAPMAN.

v.RADCLIFFE.

No. 21516.

Court of Appeals of Georgia,

Division No. 2.

Jan. 14, 1932.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 11, 1932.

Error from City Court of Floyd County; John W. Bale, Judge.

Suit by Vada Chapman against E. J. Radcliffe. Judgment was entered nonsuiting plaintiff, and plaintiff brings error.

Reversed.

Statement of facts by Jenkins, P. J.:

This was a suit against a doctor for malpractice. The plaintiff sustained a broken leg in an automobile accident, and was carried to a hospital for treatment. Her limb was X-rayed and then put in splints, and a weight attached to the foot to supply traction. A week after the injury the defendant physician took charge of the plaintiff's case, and, on the date of his first visit to the plaintiff at the hospital, changed the dressing, and later X-rayed the leg again, and reduced the weights attached to the foot. Some two weeks after his first visit, the defendant, without making a further X-ray examination, encased the leg in a plaster of paris cast, and the plaintiff was permitted to return to her home. The leg remained in the cast for about eight weeks, when the cast was removed by members of the plaintiff's family without the aid of a doctor. It was then found that the plaintiff could not use the limb, and in two weeks she was carried to another hospital, where an X-ray examination showed that the broken bone had not united, but that the ends had overlapped for about two and a half inches, and had healed over in that position. The physicians at the second hospital applied traction to the limb and brought the ends of the broken bone together by this method, but, due to the fact that the ends of the bone had healed, they would not unite, and an operation was then performed, an incision being made into the leg, the broken ends of the bone sawed off and fastened together with steel clamps to hold the ends in position until they could be united by the new growth of callous thrown out from the new wounds made on the ends of the bone. The plaintiff is still unable to walk without the aid of crutches, and the injured limb is shorter than the other. She testified that nothing happened to her between the time the leg was put in a cast by the defendant and the time she was examined by the second doctor, after the cast was removed, to cause the broken bone to get in the position in which it was found on the examination by the second doctor. The X-ray pictures taken by the second doctor corroborated his testimony as to the condition of the bone at the time the plaintiff was carried to him. The court granted a nonsuit, and the plaintiff excepted.

John D. & E. S. Taylor, of Summerville, and Porter & Mebane, of Rome, for plaintiff in error.

Maddox, Matthews & Owens, of Rome, for defendant in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

JENKINS, P. J.

1. "A person professing to practice surgery...