Fields v. Mankato Elec. Traction Co.

• Decision Date: 08 December 1911
• Parties: FIELDS v. MANKATO ELECTRIC TRACTION CO.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

116 Minn. 218

133 N.W. 577

FIELDS

v.MANKATO ELECTRIC TRACTION CO.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 8, 1911.

Appeal from District Court, Blue Earth County; Arthur H. Snow, Acting Judge.

Action by Fanny M. Fields against the Mankato Electric Traction Company. From an order denying alternative motions for judgment or a new trial, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

Where a person is injured by the wrong or neglect of another, and he is not himself negligent in the selection of a medical attendant, the wrongdoer is liable for all the proximate results of his own act, although the consequences of the injury would have been less serious than they proved to be, if the attendant had exercised proper professional skill and care. Goss v. Goss, 102 Minn. 346, 113 N. W. 690.

The trial court did not err in the application of this rule, and excluding thereunder evidence offered upon the trial of this case. A. R. Pfau, Jr., and C. J. Laurisch, for appellant.

S. B. Wilson, for respondent.

SIMPSON, J.

This is a personal injury action in which the plaintiff had a verdict. The defendant appealed from an order denying its alternative motions for judgment or a new trial. Upon this appeal the principal question raised and discussed is whether one who negligently causes an injury to another may show, either in defense or in mitigation of damages, that the injury was enhanced by unsuccessful medical treatment; the injured person not being negligent in the selection of physicians or in submitting to such treatment.

[1] As a result of falling or being thrown to the ground while alighting from a street car, the plaintiff received injuries, consisting in part of a straining and rupturing of the muscles and ligaments of the hip, and the fracturing and crushing of the neck and head of the femur or thigh bone. She was given immediate medical treatment at her home. Three physicians were in attendance, and after attempting, without success, to keep the hip in place, they determined that an operation was necessary. The day following the accident she was taken to a hospital, and the crushed portion of the thigh bone and the head of the bone were removed. The resulting wound did not heal. At the time of the trial the plaintiff's physical condition was greatly impaired. Upon the trial the defendant offered to prove that the medical treatment given plaintiff was unskillful; that the operation performed was unnecessary, and was not sanctioned by the recognized and approved practice of physicians and surgeons; that the unnecessary and improper operation greatly aggravated plaintiff's...