Howard v. Mount Sinai Hospital, Inc., 271
| Decision Date | 28 June 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 271,271 |
| Parties | Florence HOWARD et el., Respondents, v. MT. SINAI HOSPITAL, INC., et al., Appellants. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
Borgelt, Powell, Peterson & Frauen, Milwaukee, Frank A. Scherkenbach, Milwaukee, of counsel, for appellants.
Warshafsky, Rotter & Tarnoff, Milwaukee, for respondents.
ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
The opinion correctly states the law of this state. It represents no new departure from the position of Colla v. Mandella (1957), 1 Wis.2d 594, 85 N.W.2d 345, and Hass v. Chicago & North Western Ry. Co. (1970), 48 Wis.2d 321, 179 N.W.2d 885. Those cases hold, consistently with established negligence law of this court, that foreseeability of the particular harm is not an element of the determination of negligence. Although a specific injury may not be foreseen, subject to possible policy considerations, we will find liability if there is an unbroken chain of causation from the negligent act to the injury sustained and if the negligence is a substantial factor.
Even though there exists such an unbroken chain of causation, we will not find liability if the court concludes in the particular case that to allow recovery would be contrary to public policy.
Some of the various public policy factors that may be appropriately invoked to deny liability even in the face of an unbroken chain of causation were listed in Colla v. Mandella, supra, 1 Wis.2d at 599, 85 N.W.2d at 348:
'(T)he injury is (1) too remote from the negligence or (2) too 'wholly out of proportion to the culpability of the negligent tort-feasor', or (3) in retrospect it appears too highly extraordinary that the negligence should have brought about the harm, or (4) because allowance of recovery would place too unreasonable a burden upon users of the highway, or (5) be too likely to open the way to fraudulent claims, or (6) would 'enter a field that has no sensible or just stopping point.''
The policy factor relied upon in this particular case is analogous to number 4, because allowance of recovery would place too unreasonable a burden upon doctors and physicians.
There is no question of foreseeability in this case nor any question that the negligence of the physician was a substantial factor causing the cancer phobia, the existence of which is undisputed.
We hold that, under the circumstances of this particular case, it would be contrary to public policy to permit the physician to be liable for the cancer...
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