Kambat v. St. Francis Hosp.

• Decision Date: 13 February 1997
• Parties: , 678 N.E.2d 456 Janet KAMBAT, Individually and as Executrix of Florence J. Fenzel and Another, Deceased, et al., Appellants, v. ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL et al., Respondents, et al., Defendant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 844

655 N.Y.S.2d 844

89 N.Y.2d 489, 678 N.E.2d 456

Janet KAMBAT, Individually and as Executrix of Florence J Fenzel and Another, Deceased, et al., Appellants, v. ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL et al., Respondents, et al., Defendant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 13, 1997.

Raichle, Banning, Weiss & Stephens, Buffalo (R. William Stephens and R. Hugh Stephens, of counsel), for appellants.

Damon & Morey LLP, Buffalo (Julie M. Bargnesi and Michael J. Willett, of counsel), for St. Francis Hospital, respondent.

Saperston & Day, P.C., Buffalo (Albert J. D'Aquino, of counsel), for Ralph C. Sperrazza, respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

KAYE, Chief Judge.

In this medical malpractice action, an 18-by-18-inch laparotomy pad was discovered in the abdomen of plaintiffs' decedent following a hysterectomy performed by defendant physician at defendant hospital. The question before us is whether plaintiffs were entitled to submit the case to the jury on the theory of res ipsa loquitur. Contrary to the trial court and Appellate Division, we conclude that the jury could have inferred negligence under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, and that defendants' evidence of due care and alternative causes of the injury did not remove the doctrine from the case. The trial court's refusal to instruct the jury regarding res ipsa loquitur thus mandates reversal and a new trial.

I.

In August 1986, defendant physician Ralph Sperrazza performed an abdominal hysterectomy on decedent, Florence Fenzel, at defendant St. Francis Hospital. Ten laparotomy pads were marked and available for the operation, and Dr. Sperrazza placed several of these pads in decedent's peritoneal cav ity, next to the bowel, during the surgery. The patient was unconscious throughout the procedure.

In the months following the operation decedent's condition was at first unremarkable. Eventually, however, she began to complain of stomach pain, and on November 30, 1986 X-rays taken at another hospital revealed a foreign object in her abdomen. On December 5, a laparotomy pad measuring 18-by-18 inches--similar to those used during the hysterectomy--was discovered fully or partially inside decedent's bowel, and it was removed by Dr. Robert Barone. This finding was so unanticipated that a photographer was called to document it. Decedent's condition continued to deteriorate, and she died on December 29, 1986, from infection-related illnesses.

Plaintiffs, decedent's husband and children, commenced this medical malpractice action against Dr. Sperrazza and St. Francis Hospital, alleging that defendants were negligent in leaving the laparotomy pad inside decedent's abdomen. At trial, plaintiffs presented evidence that the pad removed from decedent was the same type and size as those supplied to St. Francis Hospital in 1986 and commonly used during hysterectomies. Plaintiffs also adduced testimony that the pads were provided only to hospitals with operating rooms, where patients would not have access to them.

Plaintiffs called three expert witnesses, who disagreed as to the precise abdominal area where the pad was discovered. Two experts testified that the pad was both partially inside and partially outside decedent's bowel. A third testified that the pad had originally been left outside the bowel, in the peritoneal cavity, where it caused an abscess to develop outside the bowel, which in turn created an artificial opening through which the pad had migrated into the bowel. According to this expert witness, the pad was completely within the decedent's bowel when removed.

In response, defendants introduced evidence that standard procedures were followed during the operation, and that the number of sponges, medical instruments and laparotomy pads used and removed were counted several times, carefully and accurately. Defendants' experts, moreover, opined that the pad had not been left inside decedent but, rather, that she had swallowed it. According to defendants' witnesses, laparotomy pads were frequently left in places accessible to patients in hospitals; decedent suffered from chronic depression; overuse of sleeping pills could suppress the gag reflex and permit her to swallow the pad; and the human gastrointestinal tract would allow the pad to pass to the small bowel. Plaintiffs' expert witnesses, by contrast, agreed that it would be anatomically impossible to swallow the laparotomy pad or for a swallowed pad to reach the bowel.

The trial court denied plaintiffs' request to charge res ipsa loquitur, and the jury returned a defendants' verdict. Plaintiffs moved to set aside the verdict and either enter judgment in their favor or grant a new trial, arguing that the trial court erred in refusing to deliver the requested charge. The court denied the motion, concluding that the lengthy and inconsistent expert testimony demonstrated that resolution of the case was not within a lay jury's experience and, thus, res ipsa loquitur was not applicable. The Appellate Division affirmed Supreme Court's dismissal of the complaint, two Justices dissenting, and we now reverse.

II.

Where the actual or specific cause of an accident is unknown, under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur a jury may in certain circumstances infer negligence merely from the happening of an event and the defendant's relation to it (see, Abbott v. Page Airways, 23 N.Y.2d 502, 510, 297 N.Y.S.2d 713, 245 N.E.2d 388; Restatement [Second] of Torts § 328 D, comments a, b). Res ipsa loquitur "simply recognizes what we know from our everyday experience: that some accidents by their very nature would ordinarily not happen without negligence" (Dermatossian v. New York City Tr. Auth., 67 N.Y.2d 219, 226, 501 N.Y.S.2d 784, 492 N.E.2d 1200).

Once a plaintiff's proof establishes the following three conditions, a prima facie case of negligence exists and plaintiff is entitled to have res ipsa loquitur charged to the jury. First, the event must be of a kind that ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone's negligence; second, it must be caused by an agency or instrumentality within the exclusive control of the defendant; and third, it must not have been due to any voluntary action or contribution on the part of the plaintiff (Ebanks v. New York City Tr. Auth., 70 N.Y.2d 621, 623, 518 N.Y.S.2d 776, 512 N.E.2d 297).

To rely on res ipsa loquitur a plaintiff need not conclusively eliminate the possibility of all other causes of the injury. It is enough that the evidence supporting the three conditions afford a rational basis for concluding that "it is more likely than not" that the injury was caused by defendant's negligence (Restatement [Second] of Torts § 328 D, comment e). Stated otherwise, all that is required is that the likelihood of other possible causes of the injury "be so reduced that the greater probability lies at defendant's door" (2 Harper and James, Torts § 19.7, at 1086). Res ipsa loquitur thus involves little more than application of the ordinary rules of circumstantial evidence to certain unusual events (see, Prosser and Keeton, Torts § 40, at 257 [5th ed] ), and it is appropriately charged when, "upon 'a commonsense appraisal of the probative value' of the circumstantial evidence, * * * [the] inference of negligence is justified" (George Foltis, Inc. v. City of New York, 287 N.Y. 108, 115, 38 N.E.2d 455).

Submission of res ipsa loquitur, moreover, merely permits the jury to infer negligence from the circumstances of the occurrence. The jury is thus allowed--but not compelled--to draw the permissible inference (Dermatossian v. New York City Tr. Auth., 67 N.Y.2d at 226, 501 N.Y.S.2d 784, 492 N.E.2d 1200, supra; Prosser and Keeton, Torts § 40, at 258 [5th ed] ). In those cases where "conflicting inferences may be drawn, choice of inference must be made by the jury" (George Foltis, Inc. v. City of New York, 287 N.Y. at 118, 38 N.E.2d 455, supra).

Here, the Appellate Division majority concluded that plaintiffs' proof at trial failed to satisfy any of the three conditions. With regard to the first requirement in particular, the appellate court agreed with the trial court that a lay jury could not determine whether the occurrence was of a kind that ordinarily does not occur in the absence of negligence without evaluating the parties' expert testimony and, therefore, res ipsa loquitur did not apply.

In the typical res ipsa loquitur case, the jury can reasonably draw upon past experience common to the community for the conclusion that the adverse event generally would not occur absent negligent conduct (Prosser and Keeton, Torts § 39, at 247 [5th ed]; Restatement [Second] of Torts § 328 D, comment d). In medical malpractice cases, however, the common knowledge and everyday experience of lay jurors may be inadequate to support this inference. Courts and commentators across the...