Hall v. Hospital Authority of Floyd County, s. 35987
| Decision Date | 26 January 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,35988,Nos. 35987,s. 35987,2 |
| Citation | 93 Ga.App. 319,91 S.E.2d 530 |
| Parties | Helen HALL v. HOSPITAL AUTHORITY OF FLOYD COUNTY. J. W. HALL v. HOSPITAL AUTHORITY OF FLOYD COUNTY |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
It appearing from the allegations of the petition that the defendant hospital authority of Floyd County was chartered under Code, § 99-1503 which renders it a public body corporate and politic to exercise public and essential governmental functions for the purpose of providing medical care and hospitalization for the indigent sick and poor as a public, governmental, charitable and non-profit institution, such defendant is not liable in tort for negligent injury to patients notwithstanding the fact that the patient in question here was a paying patient. Accordingly, the trial court properly sustained the ground of general demurrer attacking the petition for this reason.
J. W. Hall and his wife, Helen Hall, filed actions in Floyd Superior Court against the Hospital Authority of Floyd County seeking damages for personal injuries inflicted on Mrs. Hall by its employees in that, while she was in a semi-conscious state as a result of drugs given to alleviate the rigors of childbirth, she was treated in a negligent manner with an electric appliance from which she received painful burns and permanent scars.
It is alleged that the defendant's principal activity is that of a hospital organization that it maintains rooms and services for the care, treatment and cure of sickness and injuries; that it maintains a maternity ward and delivery room; that plaintiff was a paying patient, and that the defendant was negligent, through its agents, in failing to use care and diligence to prevent the heating lamp from being placed so close to the plaintiff, Mrs. Hall, as to inflict these injuries; in failing to use ordinary care in placing said lamp when it knew or should have known that the lamp, so placed, would have inflicted the injuries complained of; in not removing the lamp but allowing it to remain longer than was reasonably necessary; in, after so placing the lamp, leaving plaintiff unattended, knowing she was in a semi-conscious condition; in leaving plaintiff unattended while in a semiconscious state, and in improperly following the instructions of plaintiff's physician. General demurrers were interposed on the following grounds: the petition fails to set forth a cause of action; it shows on its face that defendant is a public corporation exercising public and governmental functions and as such is immune from liability for the negligence of its servants; it is immune from suit on any cause of action as a political subdivision of Floyd County; it is an eleemosynary institution not liable for alleged negligence of its agents and servants, no negligence having been alleged in the selection and retention of such servants; the petition is defective in that it seeks a general judgment not restricted to income dervied from non-charitable purposes against an eleemosynary institution; the enforcement of a judgment against defendant would deplete charitable trust funds; a judgment against such an institution is against public policy; the petition shows that the persons whose negligence resulted in plaintiff's injuries were acting as agents of the physician rather than of the hospital, and the persons responsible for plaintiff's injuries are not named.
The trial court sustained the general demurrers and dismissed the petition, and the exception is to this judgment.
Parker, Clary, Kent & Grubbs, Rome, for plaintiffs in error.
Matthews, Maddox, Walton & Smith, Rome, for defendant in error.
The Hospital Authorities Law, Code Ch. 99-15, Ga.L.1941, p. 241, under which the defendant hospital authority was incorporated was...
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Clark v. Ruidoso-Hondo Valley Hospital
...84 Ariz. 260, 326 P.2d 1117; City and County of Denver v. Madison, 1960, 142 Colo. 1, 351 P.2d 826; Hall v. Hospital Authority of Floyd County, 1956, 93 Ga.App. 319, 91 S.E.2d 530; Thomas v. Board of County Com'rs, 1952, 200 Md. 554, 92 A.2d 452; City of Leland v. Leach, 1956, 227 Miss. 558......
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Washington v. City of Columbus, No. 50504
...is not liable for torts committed in the discharge of such duties and in the execution of such powers. '' Hall v. Hospital Authority of Floyd County, 93 Ga.App. 319, 320, 91 S.E.2d 530. There is no evidence in the record before us that would take the case out of the rule expressed in the ci......
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Howard v. Liberty Memorial Hosp., CV 490-214.
...waives the immunity, because it is a "public body corporate and politic." See id., 241 Ga. at 575, 247 S.E.2d 89; Hall v. Hospital Auth., 93 Ga.App. 319, 91 S.E.2d 530 (1956). The same provision of the Georgia Constitution, however, waives sovereign immunity "as to those actions for the rec......
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Hospital Authority of Fulton County v. Litterilla, s. A90A1553
...31-7-84. The Authority was established and continues to operate under this statutory scheme. In Hall v. Hospital Auth. of Floyd County, 93 Ga.App. 319, 320, 91 S.E.2d 530 (1956), the court concluded that because the preservation of public health was a duty of the State as a sovereign power,......