Harris v. St. Tammany Parish Hosp. Serv. Dist. No. 1
| Decision Date | 29 December 2011 |
| Docket Number | NUMBER 2011 CA 0942,NUMBER 2011 CA 0941 |
| Parties | NEWTON M. HARRIS v. ST. TAMMANY PARISH HOSPITAL SERVICE DISTRICT NO. 1 AND E.J. FIELDING FUNERAL HOME, INC. NEWTON M. HARRIS, INDIVIDUALLY AND ON BEHALF OF THE ESTATE OF SUZANNE HALKETT HARRIS v. ST. TAMMANY PARISH HOSPITAL SERVICE DISTRICT NO. 1, MICHAEL IVERSON, MD AND JAMES WATTLER, CRNAA |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Newton M. Harris
C. Wm. Bradley, Jr.
E. J. Fielding Funeral Home, Inc.
These consolidated matters are before us on appeal by plaintiff, Newton M. Harris, from judgments of the trial court rendered in conformity with a jury's verdict in favor of defendants. For the following reasons, we affirm the judgment in suit number 2010-12773 and affirm in part, vacate in part, amend in part and render the judgment in suit number 2007-13187.
Plaintiff's wife, Suzanne Harris, was employed by St. Tammany Parish Hospital ("STPH") as a nurse in the Intensive Care Coronary Care Unit ("CCU"). Mrs. Harris was diagnosed with a condition called mitral stenosis, which developed as a result of years of suffering from rheumatic heart disease. Mrs. Harris initially underwent a procedure to correct her mitral stenosis by a balloon angioplasty of her mitral valve. Although this procedure improved her condition for a while, it eventually failed. Thereafter, in need of more definitive treatment, Mrs. Harris elected to have a mitral valve replacement. Mrs. Harris chose cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. John Breaux to perform this procedure at STPH as she was professionally acquainted with Dr. Breaux and thought she would receive the best care at STPH where she was employed and was personally acquainted with the staff.
Mrs. Harris' mitral valve replacement surgery was scheduled to commence at 7:00 a.m. on August 22, 2006. Dr. Breaux performed the procedure as scheduled, and after the surgery was completed, he called plaintiff at home where he was waiting and advised him that he was pleased with the way it went and that Mrs. Harris was in stable condition. The surgery was completed at approximately 11:06 a.m. After the surgery, at 11:26 a.m., Mrs. Harris was transported from the operating room on the second floor of the hospital to CCU on the fourth floor and was accompanied by Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist ("CRNA") JamesWattler, who had been assigned to her case.1 During the transport, Wattler noticed that Mrs. Harris' heart rate began to increase, so he administered a drug called Brevibloc, which was a beta blocker, to slow her heart rate.2 Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Harris began to "crash" and a "code blue" alarm was sounded. Dr. Breaux was called back to CCU for a code status. When he arrived in CCU, he found Mrs. Harris with an extremely unstable critical low pulse and low blood pressure. Dr. Breaux took a quick inventory of what had transpired, joined Dr. Michael Iverson, the anesthesiologist assigned to her case, CRNA Wattler, and other medical personnel and began to initiate extreme resuscitative efforts. Although resuscitative efforts continued for several hours, they were unsuccessful and Mrs. Harris was eventually pronounced dead at approximately 5:40 p.m. that afternoon.
Dr. Breaux testified that he ordered that an autopsy be performed on Mrs. Harris' body in order to determine the exact cause of death. He gave this order to the nurse supervisor in CCU at the time of Mrs. Harris' death. Plaintiff also testified that he asked for an autopsy and made the request while walking out of CCU after his wife was pronounced dead. Plaintiff's friend, Charles Jacobs, who was present at STPH that day to support and comfort plaintiff, heard plaintiff make this request. Rachel Rappolo, a house supervisor at STPH, was present when Dr. Breaux met with plaintiff immediately after Mrs. Harris died, and heard Dr. Breaux explain to plaintiff that an autopsy is typically performed in these types of cases.
Reverend Keith Stokes Snyder, the STPH primary death and trauma chaplain, provided patient support for plaintiff when Mrs. Harris died. Rev. Snyder testified that in connection with his duties as the STPH chaplain, he contacted the coroner's office to report Mrs. Harris's post-surgery death. He explained that a nurse would have spoken directly to the coroner's investigator concerning the cause of death. Rev. Synder also contacted E. J. Fielding Funeral Home ("Fielding"), where he understood plaintiff wanted Mrs. Harris' funeral services performed, to pick up Mrs. Harris' body from the hospital. Rev. Snyder testified that he was not notified that an autopsy had been ordered in this case. He testified that if an autopsy had been requested or ordered, the funeral home would not have been called.
When plaintiff went to Fielding to make arrangements for Mrs. Harris' funeral services a couple of days after her death, embalming services were requested as they were required to allow a viewing of her body. Plaintiff testified, however, that at the time he requested these services, he was under the impression that an autopsy of her body had already been performed by the coroner. Plaintiff subsequently discovered a couple of days after Mrs. Harris' death that an autopsy had not been performed prior to the embalming of his wife's body. Upon this discovery, plaintiff, who was understandably distraught and disturbed, made several phone calls to employees of STPH to try to find out how this could have happened. Plaintiff's calls were routed to Ms. Rappolo, who contacted Dr. Breaux and advised of the situation. Dr. Breaux ordered that an autopsy nonetheless be performed on Mrs. Harris' body even though it had already been embalmed. Dr. Breaux testified that he was also shocked and angered when he found out that the body had not been sent to the coroner for autopsy as he had originally ordered, and that STPH had instead sent the body directly to the funeral home.
An original death certificate was issued, which listed Mrs. Harris' cause of death as "Acute Heart Failure." Notably however, at some point after Mrs. Harris' death, an Adverse Drug Reaction Form was anonymously completed by STPH indicating that CRNA Wattler had administered 50 milligrams of Brevibloc to Mrs. Harris and that the drug reaction was "severe." Given this information, the coroner's office thereafter revised Mrs. Harris' death certificate to indicate that the cause of death was "undetermined."
On July 2, 2007, plaintiff filed a general negligence suit against STPH and Fielding,3 which was assigned civil docket number 2007-13187. Therein, plaintiff alleged that STPH was negligent in: (1) failing to preserve the body for the coroner's office to undertake an autopsy as ordered and failing to protect the body prior to and for autopsy as directed; (2) allowing the body to be released to the funeral home, despite outstanding orders for an autopsy from both the surgeon and decedent's husband; (3) failing to convey information to the funeral home in relation to the autopsy so that the body would not be embalmed and failing to notify the funeral home as to the autopsy; (4) failing to follow the directions of the family member of Suzanne Halkett Harris, including the directive that an autopsy be performed and that the body be released to the coroner; (5) contributing to the spoliation and/or destruction of evidence, including toxicology screen, blood work and other post-mortem diagnostic testing, which would have been undertaken and would have disclosed the cause of death had STPH not released the body to Fielding; and (6) releasing the body when STPH knew or should have known that doing so would have prevented toxicology and/or other post-mortem medical diagnostic measures to be undertaken, which could have led to a precisedetermination of the cause of death. Plaintiff alleged that as a result of the actions and/or omissions of STPH, plaintiff alleged that he suffered significant emotional pain and suffering, severe emotional devastation, mental anguish, distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and the permanent inability to ascertain what caused or contributed to the untimely death of his wife. Plaintiff further alleged that the actions of STPH have impaired his ability to prove his civil claim against STPH for medical malpractice in connection with the death of his wife due to the intentional and/or reckless and/or negligent spoliation/destruction of evidence.
On April 27, 2010, plaintiff, individually and on behalf of the Estate of Suzanne Halkett Harris, filed a medical malpractice suit against STPH, Dr. Michael Iverson,4 and CRNA James Wattler,5 which was assigned civil docket number 2010-12773.6 Therein, plaintiff alleged: (1) that Mrs. Harris was negligently administered inappropriate and/or excessive medication by STPH employees, including, but not limited to CRNA Wattler; (2) that this medication error caused and/or contributed to Mrs. Harris' subsequent onset of cardiac arrest, and thus her death was a direct result of the defendants' negligence; (3) that STPH failed to exercise that degree of care expected of a hospital providing operative, cardiac, and/or emergency services in its care and treatment of Mrs. Harris, and its negligence in failing to meet that standard caused and/or contributed to the damages complained of by plaintiff; and (4) that...
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