Gilmore v. Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority

• Decision Date: 25 September 1974
• Docket Number: No. 2,No. 49605,FULTON-D,49605,2
• Parties: Hortense GILMORE v.eKALB HOSPITAL AUTHORITY
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 676

209 S.E.2d 676

132 Ga.App. 879

Hortense GILMORE v. FULTON-DeKALB HOSPITAL AUTHORITY.

No. 49605.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Sept. 25, 1974.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 11, 1974.

Syllabus by the Court

Where the plaintiff brought a wrongful death action against a defendant for the full value of her daughter's life alleging that the defendant's negligence was the sole proximate cause of death; prosecuted the suit to judgment, and subsequently for a valuable consideration executed of record an acknowledgment that the verdict and judgment had been satisfied in full, the right of action was extinguished. In a subsequent action against the defendant hospital authority also seeking the full value of the daughter's life and based on the theory that the hospital's negligence was the sole cause of death, the defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings was properly sustained.

Hortense Gilmore first brought an action for the death of her daughter against Mrs. Nunnally, alleging the latter's negligence to be the sole proximate cause of her injuries and resulting death. The case went to trial, plaintiff obtained a verdict, defendant paid a portion of the judgment obtained, and the plaintiff executed an acknowledgment 'that said verdict and judgment, including principal, interest and costs, have been satisfied in full.'

Thereafter the plaintiff brought the present action against the hospital authority alleging that the hospital's negligence was the sole proximate cause of death in that its employees failed to administer proper treatment between the time of the collision and the death ten hours later. The authority sought and obtained a judgment on the pleadings, from which plaintiff appeals.

Irwin M. Levine, Atlanta, for appellant.

Jones, Bird & Howell, Harold N. Hill, Jr., Jack Spalding Schroder, Jr., Atlanta, for appellee.

DEEN, Judge.

In both cases a stated amount of damages was prayed for as the full value of the life of the decedent, and in each case the named defendant's negligence was alleged to be the sole proximate cause of the death. The acts of negligence alleged differ in time, place, and character. We have been cited to various cases, some of which will be subsequently discussed, involving general legal principles such as that (a) a release of one joint tortfeasor releases all; (b) verdicts void for repugnancy will not be allowed to stand; and (c) from a single injury there may be but one satisfaction. Under (a) it was held in Hill v. Penn. &c. Cas. Ins. Co., 113 Ga.App. 283, 288, 148 S.E.2d 83, 88: '(I)f the injured party gives a release, upon a valuable consideration-whether amounting to full compensation or not-the cause of action is surrendered, and since there is only one cause of action, all joint tortfeasors are released. But if there is no release, and the payment is not made and accepted as 'full compensation' it is only a pro tanto payment, for if the cause of action has not been surrendered, only full compensation will extinguish it. When a release is taken the consideration paid is presumptively full compensation.' The same presumption-i.e., that a release or settlement is presumptively full payment-is also applied where the case is litigated to a jury verdict. As stated in McLendon Bros. v. Finch, 2 Ga.App. 421, 427, 58 S.E. 690, 693: 'Such a settlement is as complete an estoppel against another suit upon the same cause of action as a judgment recovered and paid off would have been.' But in applying this rule, it must be carefully observed that it is relevant only to joint or joint and several tortfeasors, as where a guest in an automobile is injured by the concurring negligence of a host driver and the driver of another vehicle.

Under (b), supra, (the repugnancy theory) it has been held that where joint tortfeasors are not involved a slightly different question arises. In Rowland v. Vickers, 131 Ga.App. 121, 205 S.E.2d 503, the plaintiff was injured by a single defendant driving an automobile. He sued A, an occupant of the vehicle, as the driver, and obtained a settlement from him designated as a 'settlement of all issues.' He then sued B, the other occupant of the vehicle, alleging that B, not A, was the driver responsible for his injuries. The court held that the plaintiff, having obtained a satisfaction under Code Ann. § 3-114 under one set of facts was precluded from obtaining another recovery under an antithetical state of facts. Again, in Kelly v. Chrysler Corp., 129 Ga.App. 447, 451, 199 S.E.2d 856 it was held: 'Having charged (one) party as solely at fault, and having accepted a sum in settlement and release of all claims against the party he claimed to have been solely responsible (the plaintiff) cannot pursue another party under another theory completely contradictory and inconsistent with the contentions made in the first suit. Code Ann. § 3-114.'

There are also situations where joint or concurring tortfeasors are not involved, and where mutually exclusive states of fact are not involved, but where the plaintiff is precluded from recovery because he has obtained a satisfaction of his injuries. The doctrine of single satisfaction, as pointed out in Knight v. Lowery, 228 Ga. 452, 455, 185 S.E.2d 915, 917, exists for the reasons 'first, that joint tortfeasors contribute to a single injury for which there is but one cause of action, and second, that once the damage has been paid in full by one joint tortfeasor, the injured party has no right to seek an additional, or double, recovery from another.' Where the negligent acts do not occur to cause a single injury, and where full satisfaction has not been obtained, the Knight case establishes that another suit may lie. In that case it was held that a release given in exchange for a substantial payment to the party responsible for the plaintiff's injuries resulting from an automobile collision did not preclude a subsequent suit against a physician for negligent treatment of the same injuries unless (a) all damages, including those caused by the doctor, were paid in full, or (b) the parties intended by the settlement to release both tortfeasors. Further, the Knight case quotes Derby v. Prewitt, 12...