Darling v. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital

• Decision Date: 29 September 1965
• Docket Number: No. 38790,38790
• Citation: 211 N.E.2d 253,33 Ill. 2d 326
• Parties: , 14 A.L.R.3d 860 Dorrence Kenneth DARLING, II, Appellee, v. CHARLESTON COMMUNITY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 253

211 N.E.2d 253

33 Ill.2d 326, 14 A.L.R.3d 860

Dorrence Kenneth DARLING, II, Appellee, v.CHARLESTON COMMUNITY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, Appellant.

No. 38790.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 29, 1965.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 18, 1965.

Jack E. Horsley and John P. Ewart, of Craig & Craig, Mattoon (Wayne O. Shuey, Charleston, and Fred H. Kelly, Mattoon, of counsel), for appellant.

Stanford S. Meyer, Belleville, and John Alan Appleman, Urbana, for appellee.

SCHAEFER, Justice.

This action was brought on behalf of Dorrence Darling II, a minor (hereafter plaintiff), by his father and next friend, to recover damages for allegedly negligent medical and hospital treatment which necessitated the amputation of his right leg below the knee.The action was commenced against the Charleston Community Memorial Hospital and Dr. John R. Alexander, but prior to trial the action was dismissed as to Dr. Alexander, pursuant to a covenant not to sue.The jury returned a verdict against the hospital in the sum of $150,000.This amount was reduced by $40,000, the amount of the settlement with the doctor.The judgment in favor of the plaintiff in the sum of $110,000 was affirmed on appeal by the Appellate Court for the Fourth District, which granted a certificate of importance.50 Ill.App.2d 253, 200 N.E.2d 149.

On November 5, 1960, the plaintiff, who was 18 years old, broke his leg while playing in a college football game.He was taken to the emergency room at the defendant hospital where Dr. Alexander, who was on emergency call that day, treated him.Dr. Alexander, with the assistance of hospital personnel, applied traction and placed the leg in a plaster cast.A heat cradle was applied to dry the cast.Not long after the application of the cast plaintiff was in great pain and his toes, which protruded from the cast, became swollen and dark in color.They eventually became cold and insensitive.On the evening of November 6, Dr. Alexander 'notched' the cast around the toes, and on the afternoon of the next day he cut the cast approximately three inches up from the foot.On November 8he split the sides of the cast with a Stryker saw; in the course of cutting the cast the plaintiff's leg was cut on both sides.Blood and other seepage were observed by the nurses and others, and there was a stench in the room, which one witness said was the worst he had smelled since World War II.The plaintiff remained in Charleston Hospital until November 19, when he was transferred to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis and placed under the care of Dr. Fred Reynolds, head of orthopedic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes Hospital.Dr. Reynolds found that the fractured leg contained a considerable amount of dead tissue which in his opinion resulted from interference with the circulation of blood in the limb caused by swelling or hemorrhaging of the leg against the construction of the cast.Dr. Reynolds performed several operations in a futile attempt to save the leg but ultimately it had to be amputated eight inches below the knee.

The evidence before the jury is set forth at length in the opinion of the Appellate Court and need not be stated in detail here.The plaintiff contends that it established that the defendant was negligent in permitting Dr. Alexander to do orthopedic work of the kind required in this case, and not requiring him to review his operative procedures to bring them up to date; in failing, through its medical staff, to exercise adequate supervision over the case, especially since Dr. Alexander had been placed on emergency duty by the hospital, and in not requiring consultation, particularly after complications had developed.Plaintiff contends also that in a case which developed as this one did, it was the duty of the nurses to watch the protruding toes constantly for changes of color, temperature and movement, and to check circulation every ten to twenty minutes, whereas the proof showed that these things were done only a few times a day.Plaintiff argues that it was the duty of the hospital staff to see that these procedures were followed, and that either the nurses were derelict in failing to report developments in the case to the hospital administrator, he was derelict in bringing them to the attention of the medical staff, or the staff was negligent in failing to take action.Defendant is a licensed and accredited hospital, and the plaintiff contends that the licensing regulations, accreditation standards, and its own bylaws define the hospital's duty, and that an infraction of them imposes liability for the resulting injury.

The defendant's position is stated in the following excerpts from its brief: 'It is a fundamental rule of law that only an individual properly educated and licensed, and not a corporation, may practice medicine.* * * Accordingly, a hospital is powerless under the law to forbid or command any act by a physician or surgeon in the practice of his profession.* * * A hospital is not an insurer of the patient's recovery, but only owes the patient the duty to exercise such reasonable care as his known condition requires and that degree of care, skill and diligence used by hospitals generally in that community.* * * Where the evidence shows that the hospital care was in accordance with standard practice obtaining in similar hospitals, and Plaintiff produces no evidence to the contrary, the jury cannot conclude that the opposite is true even if they disbelieve the hospital witnesses.* * * A hospital is not liable for the torts of its nurse committed while the nurse was but executing the orders of the patient's physician, unless such order is so obviously negligent as to lead any reasonable person to anticipate that substantial injury would result to the patient from the execution of such order.* * * The extent of the duty of a hospital with respect to actual medical care of a professional nature such as is furnished by a physician is to use reasonable care in selecting medical doctors.When such care in the selection of the staff is accomplished, and nothing indicates that a physician so selected is incompetent or that such incompetence should have been discovered, more cannot be expected from the hospital administration.'

The basis dispute, as posed by the parties, centers upon the duty that rested upon the defendant hospital.That dispute involves the effect to be given to evidence concerning the community standard of care and diligence, and also the effect to be given to hospital regulations adopted by the State Department of Public Health under the Hospital Licensing Act(Ill.Rev.Stat.1963 chap. 111 1/2, pars. 142-157.), to the Standards for Hospital Accreditation of the American Hospital Association, and to the bylaws of the defendant.

As has been seen, the defendant argues in this court that its duty is to be determined by the care customarily offered by hospitals generally in its community.Strictly speaking, the question is not one of duty, for '* * * in negligence cases, the duty is always the same, to conform to the legal standard of reasonable conduct in the light of the apparent risk.What the defendant must do, or must not do, is a question of the standard of conduct required to satisfy the duty.'(Prosser on Torst, 3rd ed.at 331.)'By the great weight of modern American authority a custom either to take or to omit a precaution is generally admissible as bearing on what is proper conduct under the circumstances, but is not conclusive.'(2 Harper and James, The Law of Torts, sec. 17.3, at 977-978.)Custom is relevant in determining the standard of care because it illustrates what is feasible, it suggests a body of knowledge of which the defendant should be aware, and it warns of the possibility of far-reaching consequences if a higher standard is required.(Morris, Custom and Negligence, 42 Colum.L.Rev. 1147(1942);2 Wigmore, Evidence, 3rd ed. secs. 459, 461.)But custom should naver be conclusive.As Judge Learned Hand said, 'There are, no doubt, cases where courts seem to make the general practice of the calling the standard of proper diligence; we have indeed given some currency to the notion ourselves.* * * Indeed in most cases reasonable prudence is in fact common prudence; but strictly it is never its measure; a whole calling may have unduly lagged in the adoption of new and available devices.It never may set its own tests, however persuasive be its usages.Courts must in the end say what is required; there are precautions so imperative that even their universal disregard will not excuse their omission.'The T. J. Hooper(2d cir.1932), 60 F.2d 737, 740.

In the present case the regulations, standards, and bylaws which the plaintiff introduced into evidence, performed much the same function as did evidence of custom.This evidence aided the jury in deciding what was feasible and what the defendant knew or should have known.It did not conclusively determine the standard of care and the jury was not instructed that it did.

'The conception that the hospital does not undertake to treat the patient, does not undertake to act through its doctors and nurses, but undertakes instead simply to procure them to act upon their own responsibility, no longer reflects the fact.Present-day hospitals, as their manner of operation plainly demonstrates, do far more than furnish facilities for treatment.They regularly employ on a salary basis a large staff of physicians, nurses and internes, as well as administrative and manual workers, and they charge patients for medical care and treatment, collecting for such services, if necessary, by legal action.Certainly, the person who avails himself of 'hospital facilities' expects that the hospital will attempt to cure him, not that its nurses or other employes will act on their own responsibility.'(Fuld, J., in Bing v. Thunig(1957), 2 N.Y.2d 656, 163 N.Y.S.2d 3, 11, 143 N.E.2d 3, 8.)The Standards for Hospital...