Koehler v. Ohio Valley General Hospital Ass'n

• Citation: 73 S.E.2d 673,137 W.Va. 764
• Decision Date: 22 December 1952
• Docket Number: No. 795,795
• Court: Supreme Court of West Virginia
• Parties: KOEHLER, v. OHIO VALLEY GENERAL HOSPITAL ASS'N. C. C.

Page 673

73 S.E.2d 673

137 W.Va. 764

KOEHLER, v. OHIO VALLEY GENERAL HOSPITAL ASS'N.

C. C. No. 795.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted Sept. 23, 1952.

Decided Dec. 22, 1952.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. A charitable institution which owns a building in which it operates a charitable hospital owes to a stranger to such hospital, who occupies the legal status of an invited person as distinguished from a patient or a beneficiary of such hospital, the duty to exercise ordinary care to keep and maintain such building in a reasonably safe condition; and for its negligent failure so to do it is liable to an invited person whose injuries are caused by its negligence.

2. A person, not a patient or a beneficiary of a hospital operated by a charitable institution, who visits such hospital for treatment by a practicing physician who rents rooms and uses equipment, owned and made available to him by such institution, in the building in which such hospital is operated, is, as to such institution, an invited person and it owes to such person the duty to exercise ordinary care to keep and maintain its premises in a reasonably safe condition.

Joseph A. Gompers and James P. Clowes, Wheeling, for plaintiff.

O'Brien & O'Brien, Wheeling, for defendant.

HAYMOND, Judge.

In this action of trespass on the case, instituted in the Circuit Court of Ohio County, the plaintiff Anna F. Koehler seeks to recover from the defendant, Ohio Valley General Hospital Association, a nonstock association incorporated for the purpose of operating a hospital without profit damages for personal injuries caused by the alleged negligence of the defendant in failing to construct and maintain in a reasonable safe condition a ramp in a corridor in its hospital building in Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia, upon which the plaintiff fell and sustained the injuries of which she complains.

To the declaration, which consists of a single count, the defendant filed its plea of the general issue and an amended special plea to which the plaintiff filed a demurrer. The circuit court overruled the demurrer to the amended special plea and certified its ruling to this Court.

The declaration, to which no demurrer was interposed, charges, in substance, that the defendant, at and prior to the time the plaintiff sustained the injuries of which she complains, was the owner and the operator of a building in the City of Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia, which it used as a hospital; that a corridor on the first floor of the interior of the building and extending to an upper floor contained a steep ramp which led to and connected with certain rooms on the first floor in that section of the building and was used by persons generally as means of ingress and egress to and from such rooms; that the defendant leased or rented certain rooms on the first floor adjacent to the corridor to a practicing physiccian and surgeon who used them for his private practice in the treatment of the patients; that the plaintiff had been and was a patient of the physician and surgeon and was and had been receiving professional treatment from him; that to go to his rooms for such treatment it was necessary for the plaintiff to use the corridor and the ramp; that the ramp, furnished, provided and maintained by the defendant for the use of the patients of the physician and surgeon, was in a dangerous condition caused by the application of wax and other slippery substances to the floor of the ramp at the direction and with the full knowledge of the defendant and by the failure of the defendant to provide it with reasonably safe protective features such as lighting, mats, pads, banister, guards or rails for the guidance or the protection of the plaintiff in using the corridor and the ramp; that the plaintiff, after having visited the rooms occupied by the physician and surgeon, and having received treatment from him as his patient, pursuant to an appointment with him for that purpose, while walking upon the ramp, in the exercise of due care, slipped and fell upon the surface of the ramp and sustained serious and permanent personal injuries; that the defendant negligently installed and maintained the ramp in a dangerous condition; that the negligence of the defendant in failing to use due care to install and maintain the ramp in a reasonably safe condition proximately caused the injuries of which she complains; and that she has sustained damages in the amount of $25,000.

The amended special plea of the defendant alleges that it is incorporated as a nonstock association, under the Code of West Virginia, for the purpose of conducting a hospital without profit to its members or other persons; that by reason of its charitable work it has at all times operated its hospital at a loss and that its deficits are from time to time provided for by charitable donations of money and materials, by the income of charitable bequests, and by allowances made by the West Virginia Department of Public Assistance in behalf of the State of West Virginia and the County of Ohio; that the defendant maintains and conducts an out patient department in five rooms on the first floor in a section of its hospital building in which a separate entrance is maintained for patients of that department; and that in that department treatment is rendered to indigent patients for ruberculosis and other diseases. The amended special plea also alleges that in the treatment of those diseases, a physician and surgeon who occupied rooms in that department is extremely well qualified; that he maintained no office for the examination and the treatment of tubercular patients; that in order to make his ability and skill available to the general public, he was permitted the use of the out patient department of the hospital on two days of each week for a period of several hours during each day; that the facilities used by him in treating his patients, including the plaintiff, were furnished by the defendant and could not have been provided for him in any other manner; that the entire facilities of the out patient department of the defendant, including equipment and services of nurses in connection with the treatment rendered by him to his patients, including the plaintiff, were made available to him; that he did not lease space in the hospital or in the out patient department, but that he paid the dependant for these services at the rate of $2 for each patient treated by him; that the entire revenue of the out patient department, including the revenues received by him, were approximately $1,000 per month less than the expense of operating that department; that the deficit from these services, including the services utilized by his patients, has been absorbed by charitable bequests and public funds; that in making available the services of the department to him and his patients, including the plaintiff, the defendant had rendered an essential public service at a loss. The amended special plea further alleges that the defendant has no property or funds with which any judgment in this action could be paid other than funds which are administered as a charitable trust in the care of sick and injured persons and in the training of nurses and physicians; and that the defendant at all times has used reasonable care in the selection and the retention of its manager, agents, and employees who are charged with the installation and the maintenance of the floor of the ramp and the corridor in the building of the defendant.

The five separate matters set forth in the certificate of the circuit court, as summarized, present these two controlling questions: (1) Whether the plaintiff, under the allegations of the declaration and the amended special plea, is a stranger to, or a beneficiary of, the charitable hospital maintained and operated by the defendant; and (2) whether the defendant, a charitable institution, in operating and maintaining its hospital is liable to the plaintiff, under the allegations of the declaration and the amended special plea, for the personal injuries, sustained by the plaintiff, caused by its negligence in constructing or maintaining the ramp and the corridor in its building.

The question whether, and to what extent, a charitable institution is liable in tort for its negligence or that of its servants and agents has frequently been considered by the courts in many jurisdictions. It is beset with difficulty and has resulted in conflicting decisions based on various reasons. 'It has been truly said that 'the cases on this subject present an almost hopelessly tangled mass of reason and unreason such as is not often encountered in the law,' and that the marked differences in the cases, both as to results and the process by which they are reached, appear in the confusion of the quasi trust, arising from the restriction which binds every corporation to apply its corporate funds to the purposes for which it was organized, with the relation of a strictly legal trustee to his trust funds; and especially in the various means by which courts have sought to escape the patent injustice of applying the extreme doctrine of respondeat superior to the personal defaults of employees of charitable institutions.' 10 Fletcher Cyclopedia of the Law of Private Corporations, Revised and Permanent Edition, Chapter 54, Section 4921. In Vermillion v. Women's College of Due West, 104 S.C. 197, 88 S.E. 649, 650, in discussing this subject the court said: 'The conclusions reached are variant and irreconcilable. Some courts hold the rule of respondeat superior applicable to the fullest extent; others deny its applicability in toto; while others take intermediate ground for various reasons. The rule of total exemption is, perhaps, without exception, based upon grounds of public policy.'

Courts in some jurisdictions hold that a charitable institution is completely immune from all liability for its torts to every class of plaintiff,...