Jefferson Hospital, Inc. v. Van Lear

• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Eggleston, J.
• Citation: Jefferson Hospital, Inc. v. Van Lear, 186 Va. 74, 41 S.E.2d 441 (1947)
• Decision Date: 03 March 1947
• Docket Number: Record No. 3159.
• Parties: JEFFERSON HOSPITAL, INCORPORATED v. GEORGE A. VAN LEAR.

Page 74

186 Va. 74

JEFFERSON HOSPITAL, INCORPORATED v. GEORGE A. VAN LEAR.

Record No. 3159.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

March 3, 1947.

Present, Holt, C.J., and Hudgins, Gregory, Eggleston ans Spratley, JJ.

1. HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS — Negligence — Degree of Care of Patients. — The degree of care exacted of a private hospital, conducted for profit, to their patients is such reasonable care and attention for their safety as their mental and physical condition, if known, may require, and should be in proportion to the physical or mental ailments of the patient, rendering him unable to look after his own safety.

2. HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS — Negligence — Degree of Care of Patients — Failure to Provide Service of Nurses and Orderlies — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, an action against a hospital for negligence, plaintiff, a man seventy-five years old, had had cataracts removed from his eyes while in the hospital. He was cautioned that he should not attempt, without assistance of an orderly, to get out of bed and attend to his physical needs. The nurse on duty neglected to answer the plaintiff's signal for twenty or thirty minutes and plaintiff who testified that he was in much pain because of an impending bowel action, got out of bed and attempted to relieve himself. He slipped on the floor and fell fracturing his hip. The attendants at the hospital had been instructed that plaintiff should not be permitted to answer a call of nature without the assistance of an orderly.

Held: That whether the hospital attendants were negligent in not observing or answering the plaintiff's call signal was, under the circumstances, a question for the jury.

3. NEGLIGENCE — Proximate Cause. — Proximate cause is that cause, which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred.

4. PROXIMATE CAUSE — Cause Acting Through a Series of Events. — A cause of an injury may be the proximate cause notwithstanding it acted through a series of events, if the events were combined in one continuous chain through which the force of the cause operated to produce the disaster.

5. NEGLIGENCE — Proximate Cause — Intervening Cause Put in Operation by the Defendant's Wrongful Act. — An intervening cause does not operate to exempt a defendant from liability if that cause is put into operation by the defendant's wrongful act or omission.

6. HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS — Negligence — Whether Negligence of Attendants Proximate Cause of Injury — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, an action against a hospital for negligence, plaintiff, a man seventy-five years old, had had cataracts removed from his eyes while in the hospital. He was cautioned that he should not attempt, without assistance of an orderly, to get out of bed and attend to his physical needs. The nurse on duty neglected to answer the plaintiff's signal for twenty or thirty minutes and plaintiff who testified that he was in much pain because of an impending bowel action, got out of bed and attempted to relieve himself. He slipped on the floor and fell fracturing his hip. The attendants at the hospital had been instructed that plaintiff should not be permitted to answer a call of nature without the assistance of an orderly.

Held: That the jury was fully warranted in finding that plaintiff's action in attempting to attend to his needs, under the circumstances, was not a superseding cause of his injury, but was merely a circumstance in a continuous sequence of events — that is, a connecting link between the negligence of the hospital and his injury. Plaintiff's undertaking to wait upon himself was the natural and probable consequence of the failure of employees of the hospital to attend to him.

7. HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS — Negligence — Whether Attendant Should Have Known Consequences of Neglect — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, an action against a hospital for negligence, plaintiff, a man seventy-five years old, had had cataracts removed from his eyes while in the hospital. He was cautioned that he should not attempt, without assistance of an orderly, to get out of bed and attend to his physical needs. The nurse on duty neglected to answer the plaintiff's signal for twenty or thirty minutes and plaintiff who testified that he was in much pain because of an impending bowel action, got out of bed and attempted to relieve himself. He slipped on the floor and fell fracturing his hip. The attendants at the hospital had been instructed that plaintiff should not be permitted to answer a call of nature without the assistance of an orderly. Both the nurse and orderly said that the plaintiff had undertaken to get out of bed and wait on himself on other occasions.

Held: That the hospital attendants knew, or should have known, that as a consequence of their neglect of his needs, plaintiff would undertake to get out of bed and wait on himself.

8. NEGLIGENCE — Proximate Cause — Intervening Cause. — An intervening cause will not be deemed to have broken the causal connection if the intervening cause was foreseen or reasonably might have been foreseen by the wrongdoer.

9. HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS — Negligence — Attendants' Failure to Wait on Plaintiff — Urgency of Plaintiff's Situation as Proper Element for Consideration of Jury — Case at Bar. — In the instant case, an action against a hospital for negligence, plaintiff, a man seventy-five years old, had had cataracts removed from his eyes while in the hospital. He was cautioned that he should not attempt, without assistance of an orderly, to get out of bed and attend to his physical needs. The nurse on duty neglected to answer the plaintiff's signal for twenty or thirty minutes and plaintiff who testified that he was in much pain because of an impending bowel action, got out of bed and attempted to relieve himself. He slipped on the floor and fell fracturing his hip. The attendants at the hospital had been instructed that plaintiff should not be permitted to answer a call of nature without the assistance of an orderly. Complaint was made of the action of the trial court in instructing the jury that in determining whether plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence they should take into consideration whether the urgency of his condition and his needs for immediate relief justified him in leaving his bed and attempting to wait upon himself. It was argued that the urgency of the situation was not a proper element for consideration of the jury.

Held: That there was no merit in the contention. The urgency of the situation in which the plaintiff was placed was a very material circumstance in determining whether he acted as a reasonably prudent man.

Error to a judgment of the Law and Chancery Court of the city of Roanoke. Hon. S. L. Fellers, judge presiding.

The opinion states the case.

Cocke, Hazlegrove & Shackelford, for the plaintiff in error.

Charles D. Fox and James N. Kincanon, for the defendant in error.

EGGLESTON, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

George A. Van Lear, a patient at Jefferson Hospital, Incorporated, of Roanoke, while attempting to wait on himself in his room, fell and was badly injured. He sued the hospital, claiming that his injuries were proximately due to its negligence, (1) in failing to provide him with the services of nurses, orderlies or other attendants commensurate with his known physical condition and needs, and (2) in failing to maintain the floor in his room in a reasonably safe and proper condition.

With respect to the second charge, the claim was that the floor was so highly polished as to be slippery and dangerous for a person of his age and condition to walk safely thereon. However, since the trial court held that there was not sufficient evidence to warrant the submission of the defendant's negligence to the jury on the item, we are not now concerned with it.

On the first charge the jury found a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and the trial court entered judgment thereon. Our main problem is whether the evidence on this phase of the case is sufficient to sustain the verdict.

The hospital contends that the evidence falls short of the legal requirements in two respects, namely: (1) It fails to show that the defendant, or any of its employees, was guilty of negligence, and (2) it shows that the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries was his own voluntary act in undertaking to attend to his needs when he knew, or ought to have known, that he was in no condition to do so.

Viewed in the light of the verdict the facts are these:

At the time of the accident Mr. Van Lear was seventy-five years of age and was employed as a registered pharmacist at a drugstore in Tazewell, Virginia. Prior to his removal to Tazewell he had lived in Roanoke for forty years.

Over a period of years cataracts had developed on both of his eyes, as a result of which the sight in the right eye had suffered a total eclipse, and that in the left eye had been considerably impaired. He was advised by his surgeon, Dr. G. M. Maxwell of Roanoke, that the cataract on his right eye should be removed.

On February 13, 1945, Mr. Van Lear came to Roanoke for the purpose and entered the Jefferson Hospital where he made arrangements, for compensation or as a pay patient, for hospital service immediately preceding the operation and during his recuperative period following it. On the next day, February 14, the cataract was sucessfully removed from the right eye which was covered with a bandage, and he was returned to his room in the hospital.

The room to which Mr. Van Lear had been assigned had no separate bath or toilet, and he had been instructed both by Dr. Maxwell and the hospital attendants that when he desired to answer a call of nature he should ring for a nurse who in turn would dispatch to him an orderly who would attend to his needs through the use of a bedpan in his room. He was cautioned that he should not attempt,...