Hammonds v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Company

• Decision Date: 06 January 1965
• Docket Number: No. C 64-736.,C 64-736.
• Citation: 237 F. Supp. 96
• Parties: Lloyd HAMMONDS, Plaintiff, v. AETNA CASUALTY & SURETY COMPANY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

237 F. Supp. 96

Lloyd HAMMONDS, Plaintiff, v. AETNA CASUALTY & SURETY COMPANY, Defendant.

No. C 64-736.

United States District Court N. D. Ohio, E. D.

January 6, 1965.

Sheldon R. Walker, Willoughby, Ohio, Edward H. Stinson, Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiff.

Arter, Hadden, Wykoff & Van Duzer, Smith Warder, Cleveland, Ohio, for defendant.

CONNELL, Chief Judge.

The plaintiff has filed complaint against the defendant for allegedly inducing the interruption of a physician-patient relationship and for allegedly inducing the divulgence of confidential information gained through that relationship. The case is here by reason of diversity of citizenship, the defendant being a Connecticut corporation, with its principal place of business in Connecticut. As such, the case must be governed by substantive principles of Ohio law. The defendant has now brought this motion to dismiss the complaint, asserting that the pleading fails to allege a cause of action under Ohio law. For purposes of this motion we must assume that the allegations of the complaint are true, and we address ourselves solely to the legal sufficiency of their significance. The complaint alleges that the plaintiff, as a patient, entered Euclid-Glenville Hospital on January 12, 1960. After two operations on his back, the plaintiff was successfully recovering when his hospital bed collapsed on February 17, 1960, throwing the patient to the floor. As an outgrowth of this incident, the plaintiff sued the hospital in the Court of Common Pleas in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, alleging that the collapse of the bed was due to a defective leg and that the defendant hospital knew of that defect.

In preparation for the defense of that lawsuit, the hospital's attorney, one R. Crawford Morris, allegedly requested that the Cleveland office for the defendant Aetna obtain from the plaintiff's treating doctor, Dr. Alexander Ling, all medical information about the plaintiff on the pretext that Aetna was investigating a claim against the doctor. The plaintiff asserts that there never was any complaint against his physician, and that the representation to him that the plaintiff intended to sue him was false. The plaintiff further alleges that, after the defendant had transferred the information from the doctor to Attorney Morris, the defendant, the doctor's malpractice insurance carrier, "intimidated" the doctor so that he declined to further treat the plaintiff. As a consequence plaintiff alleges that he was deprived of the treatment of the one doctor best qualified to treat him, and his hope for redress in the lawsuit against the hospital has been prejudiced by the divulgence of confidential information to defendant's attorney, R. Crawford Morris.

Our question, briefly, is this: If all these allegations are susceptible of proof, does the course of conduct complained of afford the plaintiff a right of action under Ohio law?

Although the language of the complaint is imprecise, at least in so far as it expresses the legal theory of recovery, we perceive of two separate avenues by which the plaintiff hopes to travel to success. The first complains of the interference by the defendant with the performance of the contractual duty of the treating physician; the second asserts that the defendant, by fraudulent representation, induced the corruption of confidences gained by that relationship. Although the reports of Ohio decisions are barren of binding authority on point, and persuasive authority from other jurisdictions is sparse (no doubt due to the traditionally high standards of ethical conduct in both the medical and legal professions), we conclude from our research that there is no authority which would compel us to dismiss the plaintiff's complaint. On the contrary, what little we find leads us to the conclusion that the plaintiff has properly asserted a cause of action.

Directing our attention to the allegation that defendant secured a breach of contract between the plaintiff and the doctor, we must first ascertain whether the alleged action of the doctor, if proven true, would give rise to redress. Before we may determine whether the defendant is liable for inducing this action, we first must assay the propriety of that which was induced.

It is, of course, axiomatic that a doctor is not required to answer the plea of all who seek his aid (Limbaugh v. Watson, 12 Ohio Law Abst. 150) (Ohio App.1932), but once he assumes the contractual duty to treat a patient, he may not evade that duty unless and until seasonable notice is given to the patient and he has the opportunity to secure adequate medical attention. As stated by the court in Morningstar v. Jones, 31 Ohio Law Abst. 440, 446 (Ohio App. 1940):

"The general rule applicable to the duration and termination of the employment of a physician and surgeon is stated in 48 C.J. at page 1112, as follows:

"`Unless the terms of employment, or notice, limit the services to be given, the relation of physician and patient, and the physician's employment, continue until the physician's services are no longer needed, or until terminated by common or mutual consent or at the will of either party.' "However, the latter part of the above rule is limited by the decisions of the courts of Ohio, to the effect that although a patient may, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, discharge a physician at any time, before a physician or surgeon can withdraw from the case, it is necessary for him to give reasonable notice to the patient in order that another physician may be procured, the character of the services of the physician and his relation to the patient being such that he is not permitted under the law arbitrarily to quit the services at any time without any cause, and leave his patient without medical attendance."

According to the allegations of the complaint, the plaintiff has been denied the attention of the one physician who is best equipped to treat the plaintiff by reason of his knowledge of plaintiff's medical background and injury. He further alleges that the discontinuation of treatment resulted in pain and suffering and the retardation of the healing process. Thus the question of whether the doctor's departure was justifiable becomes a question of fact, resolution of which must await further proceedings. The plaintiff has alleged conduct on the part of the doctor which, if proven true, the law would recognize as improper.

But the question with which we are here faced is whether a party who induces such misconduct may be held liable for its consequences. The defendant argues that, inasmuch as the contract between doctor and patient is terminable at will, no action will lie for inducing its breach. In Prosser, Torts, 955, 3d Ed. 1964, the author summarizes the authorities on this question thus:

"There is some authority that no action lies as to contracts which the promisor may terminate at will, on the theory that there is really nothing involved but an option on his part to perform or not. However, eminent legal writers to the contrary notwithstanding, the overwhelming majority of the cases have held that interference with employments or other contracts terminable at will is actionable, since until it is terminated the contract is a subsisting relation, of value to the plaintiff, and presumably to continue in effect."

The defendant cites Horth v. American Aggregates Corp., Ohio App., 35 N.E.2d 592, 31 Ohio Law Abst. 331,¹ where the court held that it was not a malicious inducement of a breach of contract for a person to enter into an agreement with another person knowing that such other person has a contract with a third party covering the same subject matter. In support of this holding, the court found a total lack of evidence on the question of whether the inducement was malicious. This, of course, is a question of fact which we cannot decide in the case at bar upon motion to dismiss. We must point out that the holding in the Horth case necessarily infers that a cause of action will lie for the malicious inducement of a breach of contract. The pleadings in this case adequately avoid whatever effect the holding in the Horth case might have upon the plaintiff's cause of action.

The defendant has also cited Lancaster v. Hamburger, 70 Ohio St. 156, 71 N.E. 289, 65 L.R.A. 856 (1904) for the proposition that a third party has carte blanche authority to interfere with a business relationship regardless of his motive. In Lancaster the court held that a passenger in a streetcar incurs no liability to a conductor for reporting to his superior on conductor's misconduct while on duty, despite the fact that the evidence indicated that the report was motivated by ill will. It is true, as the defendant states, that the court recognized that the general rule in Ohio was that "It is immaterial by what motive one is prompted in the exercise of a clear legal right or the performance of a duty." (70 Ohio St. at 164, 71 N.E. at 291.) In the Lancaster case, however, the court held that the defendant, as a patron of the street railway company, was entitled to the benefit of the company's rules designed for the safety and comfort of its passengers, and was further entitled to report to the company any infraction of those rules. The defendant's membership in a protected class gave rise to the right which the court recognized there. In ...