Lab v. Hall
| Decision Date | 27 June 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 487,487 |
| Citation | 200 So.2d 556 |
| Parties | Carl Paul LAB, Appellant, v. Charles C. HALL and Florida Sanitarium and Benevolent Association, jointly and severally, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Albert Yorko, Orlando, for appellant.
Charles W. Abbott, of Maguire Voorhis & Wells, Orlando, for appellee Charles C. Hall.
Leon H. Handley and J. H. Roberts, Jr., of Gurney, Gurney & Handley, Orlando, for appellee Florida Sanitarium and Benevolent Ass'n.
Appellant (plaintiff), Carl Paul Lab, appeals a final summary judgment entered in favor of each of the appellees (defendants), Charles C. Hall, a physician, and Florida Sanitarium and Benevolent Association, a hospital. The action is for damages resulting from the death of the plaintiff's wife who died as a result of pulmonary edema, bilateral, moderate severe, due to amniotic fluid embolism, occurring in parturition.
The complaint alleges malpractice by the physician and negligence of the hospital in exercising the standard of care owed by each and alleges a breach of that standard which breach proximately caused the death of plaintiff's wife.
After answering, each defendant moved for summary judgment on the ground that the pleadings, depositions, interrogatories and answers thereto and the entire record indicate there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that each was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. No supporting affidavits were filed on behalf of either of the defendants. The plaintiff in opposition to the motion filed an affidavit of a medical doctor, a medical doctor's deposition and the hospital record.
Generally it is the duty of a medical practitioner to apply to the diagnosis and treatment of his patient the ordinary skills, means and methods that are recognized as necessary and which are customarily followed in the particular cases, according to the standard of those who are qualified by training and experience to perform similar services in the community. Olschefsky v. Fischer, Fla.App.1960, 123 So.2d 751; Brown v. Swindal, Fla.App.1960, 121 So.2d 38, 40; Crovella v. Cochrane, Fla.App.1958, 102 So.2d 307, 311; Hill v. Boughton, 1941, 146 Fla. 505, 511, 1 So.2d 610, 613, 134 A.L.R. 678, 682; Saunders v. Lischkoff, 1939, 137 Fla. 826, 835, 188 So. 815, 819.
A hospital is bound to exercise toward a patient such reasonable care as his known condition may require, the degree of care being in proportion to his known physical and mental ailments. The extent and character of the care that a hospital owes its patients depends upon the circumstances of the particular case, and the measure of the duty of a hospital is to exercise that degree of care, skill and diligence used by hospitals generally in the community and required by the express or implied contract of the undertaking. Sprick v. North Shore Hospital, Incorporated, Fla.App.1960, 121 So.2d 682; Marsh v. City of St. Petersburg, Fla.App.1958, 106 So.2d 567; Memorial Hospital, South Broward Hospital District v. Doring, Fla.App.1958, 106 So.2d 565.
The party moving for a summary judgment has the burden of showing absence of a genuine issue of fact, and all inferences of fact from the proofs proffered at the hearing must be drawn against the movant and in favor of the party opposing the motion. Central Investments, Inc. v. Old Southern Golf Utility Corp., Fla.App.1967, 197 So.2d 17; Leaks v. Adeimy, Fla.App.1967, 195 So.2d 47; Warring v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Fla.App.1958, 105 So.2d 915.
The function of the court in passing on a motion for a summary judgment is to determine whether there is a genuine issue of any material fact, not the determination of the issue of fact. Factual issues are not to be tried or resolved in such proceedings. Johnson v. Studstill, Fla.1954, 71 So.2d 251.
Some cases by the nature of the complexity of the issues involved and obscurity of the answers are not susceptible of summary adjudication but require a full exploration by a trial. The granting or denial of a summary judgment should be accommodated in a common sense manner to the realities of the litigation at hand.
It has been recognized by the overwhelming majority that summary judgments must be cautiously granted in negligence cases. Booth v. Mary Carter Paint Company, Fla.App.1966, 182 So.2d 292; Saunders v. Kaplan, Fla.App.1958, 101 So.2d 181; Southern Express Co. v. Williamson, 1913,66 Fla. 286, 63 So. 433. 30 Fla.Jur., Summary Judgment, § 6. Issues of negligence are ordinarily not susceptible of summary adjudication. 6 Moore Federal Practice, § 56.17(42), page 2583. This is particularly true in malpractice suits where, as here, the attendant facts are peculiarly within the knowledge of the movants and the showing of negligence is generally dependent upon expert testimony as to the standard of care required and observed.
Some material issues which the record has failed to negate are, for example, as to the defendant doctor, whether he exercised the ordinary skill, means and methods that are recognized as necessary when he gave the deceased the pitocin drug to induce labor without obtaining an obstetrical consultation which might have led to a cesarean operation in light of deceased's weight problem and prior history of miscarriages as brought forth by plaintiff's affidavit given by another physician.
As to the hospital, the above-quoted general rule pertaining to the standard of care a hospital should exercise in safeguarding patients submitted to its charge points out that one of these elements in determining the amount of care to be exercised is measured by the capacity of the patient to care for herself. Naturally a higher standard of care is required in attending a woman who is in labor and about to deliver a child.
The question of defendant's liability cannot be lawfully withdrawn from the jury and determined by the court unless the facts are not only undisputed but are also such that all reasonable men, in the exercise of a fair and impartial judgment, must draw the inference and conclusion therefrom of non-negligence. Leaks v. Adeimy, supra.
Genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether or not the defendants breached their duty to exercise the standard of care each owed and if such breach was causally connected to the death of the plaintiff's wife.
Reversed.
I respectfully dissent...
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