Connellan v. Coffey

• Decision Date: 06 November 1936
• Citation: 187 A. 901,122 Conn. 136
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: CONNELLAN v. COFFEY.

187 A. 901

122 Conn. 136

CONNELLAN v. COFFEY.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

November 6, 1936

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; John Richards Booth Judge.

Action by William Connellan against James R. Coffey, to recover damages for injury alleged to have been caused by negligent surgical treatment of plaintiff by defendant. From a verdict of the jury in favor of the defendant, plaintiff appeals.

No error.

In action by patient against physician for negligent treatment it is not sufficient for recovery for patient to show that chance for better recovery would have been improved by different method of treatment.

Charles Albom, Arthur Klein, and Robert J. Woodruff, all of New Haven, for appellant.

Cyril Coleman and Lawrence A. Howard, both of Hartford, and David E. FitzGerald, Sr., of New Haven, for appellee.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, BANKS, AVERY, and BROWN, JJ.

HINMAN, Judge.

On June 22, 1933, the plaintiff, then thirteen years of age, sustained a compound fracture of the left arm by a fall from a tree. The defendant, a physician and surgeon, was called to attend him and treated him at home until June 29th, when he was removed to a hospital. Meanwhile gas gangrene infection had developed to such an extent that amputation of the arm was necessary. The plaintiff, in this action, alleged and offered in evidence to prove that the occurrence of the infection, its development, and the consequences thereof were due to negligent treatment by the defendant in several specified respects.

The defendants offered evidence detailing his care and treatment of the plaintiff and claimed to have proved that therein he exercised the required degree of care, skill and diligence.

The portion of the charge which is the subject of the assignments of error instructed the jury that " In order to recover, the plaintiff must show not only that the physician or surgeon was negligent or unskillful, but also that the injury resulted directly from such negligence or unskillfulness. No recovery can be had if there was any intervening cause in the absence of which it is reasonably probable that the plaintiff would not have suffered injury." Also that " the wrongful act or negligence *** must have been a substantial contributing factor in producing the injuries complained of. Even if [the defendant] was negligent in some respect, but that negligence didn't result in these injuries *** your verdict must be for the defendant." Obviously the trial court employed the term " injuries" in the sense of all the harmful results within the scope of the complaint in producing which negligence of the defendant was a substantial factor, and the jury must have so understood.

The plaintiff's main contention is that the nature of the proof of causation in malpractice cases is peculiar and exceptional, and that recovery should be allowed if the negligence or unskillfulness of the defendant " deprived the plaintiff of the chances of a better recovery presumed to flow from proper treatment," and that the jury should have been so instructed. In Mahoney v. Beatman, 110 Conn. 184, 147 A. 762, 767, 66 A. L. R. 1121, after a thorough review of various conceptions and statements of the rules determinative of proximate cause, we held that the causal relation between negligence of a defendant and the injuries of a plaintiff which is necessary to justify a recovery is most clearly, simply, and comprehensively stated and defined by the phrase that " the negligence must have been a substantial factor in producing the injuries suffered." Smirnoff v. McNerney, 112 Conn. 421, 426, 152 A. 399. See, also, Amer. Law Institute Restatement, Torts (Negligence), § 431(a). Charges so stating the rule have been consistently sustained. Smirnoff v. McNerney, supra; Pilon v. Alderman, 112 Conn. 300, 152 A. 157; Lupatin v. Shine, 117 Conn. 698, 169 A. 916; Breed v. Philgas Co., 118 Conn. 128, 135, 171 A. 14.

In Green v. Stone, 119 Conn. 300, 306, 176 A. 123, 125 a malpractice case in which the testimony went no farther than to indicate that earlier treatment of the plaintiff by the defendant " might have been beneficial," we held the trial court to have been justified in setting aside a plaintiff's verdict because, on that state of evidence, " the jury were left purely to speculation as to whether the conduct of the defendant was a cause of the plaintiff's subsequent condition." Our statement in that connection that in order to support a verdict it was incumbent upon the plaintiff to produce testimony to the effect that earlier treatment " with reasonable probability would have aided the patient" is not to be construed as meaning, as the present plaintiff claims, that such duty would be complied with if the evidence indicated that " the chance for a better recovery" would have been improved by a different method of treatment. This, equally, would relegate to the realm of speculation the question whether or not fault of the defendant was a cause of the conditions for which damage is sought. The true meaning of the phrase so seized upon is indicated by the prior statement (119 Conn. 300, at page 305, 176 A. 123) that the evidential defect which deprived Mrs. Green of a right to a verdict was that testimony was lacking that more prompt treatment " would have affected the result." That is, in essence, the equivalent of a lack of testimony from which the jury might justifiably find that...