Hill v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 16 June 1924
• Parties: NORA HILL, Respondent, v. C. M. JACKSON, Appellant.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

265 S.W. 859

218 Mo.App. 210

NORA HILL, Respondent, v. C. M. JACKSON, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of Missouri, Kansas City

June 16, 1924

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Vernon County.--Hon. B. G. Thurman Judge.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

A. E Elliott and W. H. Hallett for respondent.

Ewing & Weing for appellant.

OPINION

BLAND, J.

This is a malpractice suit. Plaintiff recovered a verdict and judgment in the sum of $ 1500 and defendant has appealed.

The petition alleges--". . . that defendant in extracting plaintiff's teeth as aforesaid did negligently, carelessly and unskillfully dislocate her jaw in so doing and did negligently and carelessly fail to discover that he had dislocated the same, and did negligently and carelessly fail to replace and reset it and to advise plaintiff that he had so dislocated it."

The facts show that plaintiff, as the result of a severe case of pyorrhea, suffered from inflammation of the gums and pus around the teeth which were broken down. She consulted the defendant, a dentist of Nevada, Missouri, concerning her ailment and on August 8, 1921, the defendant extracted all of her upper teeth; she returned on September 6, 1921, and defendant extracted all of her lower teeth. Defendant testified that in extracting plaintiff's lower teeth he broke off one and had difficulty in getting it out. Over defendant's objection plaintiff was permitted to testify that defendant dislocated her jaw at the time her lower teeth were extracted. Plaintiff's husband testified--"I was present when he pulled my wife's teeth, and she screamed when he pulled her teeth, and told him she couldn't shut her mouth. He said it was the medicine drawing the muscles and that it would probably work out by the time we got home, and the jaws wouldn't be so stiff by then."

Plaintiff testified--"I told him (defendant) my jaw was dislocated and he said it was the effects of the medicine stiffening the muscles. "Q. How did you know your jaw was dislocated? A. Because I had such pain up here (indicating) in my jaw, and I couldn't close my mouth."

About ten days after the extraction of her lower teeth plaintiff, being in the same condition, that is, unable to close her mouth and with her jaw paining her, went to her family physician and he discovered that her jaw was dislocated but he did not attempt to set it. Another physician in the presence of the defendant afterwards made strenuous efforts to set her jaw by manipulation, without result, and plaintiff's jaw remained dislocated to the time of the trial.

There is testimony tending to show that it is a very easy matter for a dentist to discover by examination a dislocated jaw. There was conflict in the testimony as to whether it was easy or difficult to set a dislocated jaw at the time of the dislocation, but there was ample evidence to show that the longer the jaw is allowed to remain in this condition the greater the difficulty of setting it, for the reason that the working of the jaw-bone out of place tends to cause friction and a wasting away of the head of the bone, and the end of the bone may become softened and the cavity where the bone has come out will start to fill up.

There was a great deal of testimony on the part of defendant tending to show that he did not dislocate plaintiff's jaw; that the condition of her jaw was caused as the result of an infection from the pyorrhetic condition of her mouth and gums; that this infection had been transmitted to the joint producing inflamed muscles and a thickening of the tissues at the head of the jaw-bone, a filling up of the socket in which it rests, causing ankolisis of the jaw and forcing the head of the bone down and out of place to a certain extent.

Dr. Hornback, testifying for plaintiff, stated that he made an examination of plaintiff about three or four months after the time the lower teeth were pulled and at that time he found that her jaw was dislocated; that plaintiff's jaw protruded forward and downward; that it was very easy to detect a dislocated jaw; that in his opinion the head of the jaw-bone rested on the tubercle process. There was evidence that plaintiff's jaw was in the same condition when Dr. Hornback examined her that it was in on the day it is claimed it was dislocated.

Denying that he had dislocated plaintiff's jaw, defendant, of course, admitted that he did not inform her that her jaw was dislocated and made no claim that he attempted to set it; on the contrary, the evidence shows that when plaintiff returned, some days afterwards, complaining of the condition of her jaw, he told her that she was getting along nicely. The evidence shows that it was the duty of a dentist who has dislocated a patient's jaw to immediately reset it.

It is insisted that defendant's demurrer to the evidence should have been sustained, and this is based, to a large extent, upon another point, and that is that the court erred in permitting plaintiff to testify that the defendant dislocated her jaw at the time her lower teeth were extracted. This was the only testimony, at least of a direct nature, that defendant dislocated plaintiff's jaw. It is insisted that whether plaintiff's jaw was dislocated was a question for expert testimony, especially in view of the sharp conflict in the testimony on the question as to whether or not her jaw had been dislocated.

We think under the circumstances that the court did not err, at least on the ground assigned, in permitting plaintiff to testify that her jaw was dislocated. We do not think that the injury that plaintiff received is so obscure as to lie beyond the pale of the testimony of a lay witness and to depend entirely upon the opinion of an expert. The facts are that prior to the time plaintiff claimed that her jaw was dislocated, she had had no trouble with it but immediately after defendant extracted her teeth she had pains in her jaw, apparently in the vicinity of the joint. We think that where a person whose jaw was apparently in a healthy condition and is functioning properly goes to a dentist and has her teeth extracted and the dentist has difficulty in extracting one of them, breaking it off, and immediately thereafter the patient has pain in her jaw and is unable to close her mouth, it does not take the opinion of an expert to learn that her jaw is dislocated. [Ferguson v. Davis County, 57 Iowa 601; Wise v. Railroad, 135 Mo.App. 230.] It is true that defendant introduced the testimony of many experts who gave it as their...