Link v. Sheldon

• Decision Date: 29 November 1892
• Parties: LINK v. SHELDON et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

136 N.Y. 1

32 N.E. 696

LINK

v.SHELDON et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Nov. 29, 1892.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, fourth department.

Action by Harry W. Link, an infant, etc., against Jay W. Sheldon and another, surgeons, for malpractice. Judgment for plaintiff. From a judgment of the general term (18 N. Y. Supp. 815) affirming same, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

T. K. Fuller, for appellants.

Wm. Nottingham, for respondent

GRAY, J.

The action was brought against certain physiciaus to recover damages for their unskillfulness or their negligence in the treatment of the plaintiff for a fracture of the bones of his right forearm, whereby his hand was permanently nently deformed in part, and a verdict was recovered of $4,000, which recovery the general term has affirmed. The apparent severity of the verdict, the nature of the issue, which involved the question of the competency of defendants as medical practitioners, and the earnestness with which the appellants have insisted upon the commission of errors upon the trial, have caused us to carefully examine and consider this record and its questions. Although the plaintiff had shown that he may permanently suffer from a crippled hand, we nevertheless think that there was enough before the trial judge and the court at general term in the nature of the accident, in the conflict of professional opinions as to the treatment, and in the possible doubt which overhung the case that the distortion of the hand was not wholly due to the malpractice charged against defendants, but might have resulted in any event, to have justified an interference with the verdict on the ground of its excessiveness. There was latitude for the entertainment of a doubt concerning the treatment of the case, and the final result complained of, which would not have subjected a reduction of the recovery by the general term to criticism, as being without adequate grounds. The practice of surgery must always admit of some doubt as to ulterior complete success. But, however that may be, the decision of the tribunals below in that respect is final. The doubt was resolved adversely to defendants, and this court is without power to review the determination as to the amount of the damages awarded. Oldfield v. Railroad Co., 14 N. Y. 310, 321;Gale v. Same, 76 N. Y. 594. The defendant moved upon several grounds for a nonsuit, which may be, in effect, résuméd in the statement that the plaintiff had failed to show that his crippled condition is the result of want of knowledge or skill, or of any negligence on the part of the defendants, or that it was not caused by either his own neglect or that of his parents, or that it was not attributable to the subsequent mismanagement of the case by the physician called in to take charge of it. Briefly stated, the facts were that plaintiff, a lad of 13 years of age, while playing in a hay loft, fell through an opening, and upon the barn floor, striking with such force upon his hand and forearm as to produce what is known by the surgical term of a ‘Colles fracture’ of the large bone of the arm near the wrist joint, with a dislocation of the smaller bone. The defendants, one of whom had long attended upon the lad's family, were called in. They dressed the wounded parts, and placed a splint, to hold the bones in place. The accident occurred on a Friday, and the management of the case by the defendants continued from that day until the following Monday evening; Dr. Doyle, another physician, being called in by the lad's parents on Tuesday morning. Over the methods of the defendants in treating the wound and in bandaging the arm and hand a severe controversy was waged, it being claimed by the plaintiff that the treatment was unskillful, and grossly negligent; while for the defense it was claimed that the treatment was such as the peculiar nature of the wound called for, and that the bad condition into which the plaintiff fell on Monday and Tuesday was due to a refusal on the part of his parents to permit defendants to seasonably redress the hand on Monday evening. It appears that the plaintiff's parents became dissatisfied with the defendants' treatment of the case, and, hearing of Dr. Doyle's success in the case of some acquaintance, dismissed the defendants on Tuesday morning, and called in Dr. Doyle. The points made for the plaintiff were that the accident having caused an ordinary Colles' fracture, a certain metallic splint used should have been adjusted to the palmar surface of the hand, instead of upon its back; and that the bandaging of hand and arm had been so tight as, by such ignorant and neglectful treatment, to cause an inflammation, and resultant suppuration, which, in the healing, drewin the thumb, and permanently deformed the hand. The defendants testified that the fracture, though similar to that known as ‘Colles' fracture,’ had so reversed the position of the bones that the splint had to be used as it was placed by them; that the physical condition of the patient, in addition, was bad from feverishness; that the bandages were rightly adjusted; that the great inflammation discovered when Dr. Doyle was called in was due to their having been prevented from redressing the wound for many hours; and, finally, that, had the succeeding physician properly treated the hand in its inflamed and swollen condition by lancing, instead of by poulticing, no distorted condition of the hand would have resulted.

Medical experts were examined in support of the plaintiff's and of the defendants' positions, and when the evidence was all in the case was such as to present purely questions of fact for the determination of the jury. If they believed that it was an ordinary Colles' fracture, then the weight of the skilled evidence,...