Lundberg v. Bay View Hospital

• Decision Date: 03 July 1963
• Docket Number: No. 37651,37651
• Citation: 175 Ohio St. 133,191 N.E.2d 821
• Parties: , 23 O.O.2d 416 LUNDBERG, Appellee, v. BAY VIEW HOSPITAL, Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 133

175 Ohio St. 133

191 N.E.2d 821, 23 O.O.2d 416

LUNDBERG, Appellee, v. BAY VIEW HOSPITAL, Appellant.

No. 37651.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

July 3, 1963.

Syllabus by the Court

A verdict and judgment for money against a hospital in a negligence action will not be disturbed on appeal, where no prejudicial error occurred in the trial of the cause and where the evidence supports findings that plaintiff suffered bodily disabilities which were directly attributable to a careless and faulty diagnosis of her physical condition by a physician-pathologist who was a representative of the hospital and acting for it while plaintiff was a patient of the hospital, and that the action against the hospital was timely commenced.

The present cause originated in the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County. It was brought by Betty Lundberg, a young married woman, against Bay View Hospital, a corporation not for profit, and Richard N. Sheppard and Jacek F. Turowski, osteopathic physicians. The petition alleges negligence on the part of the three defendants in the diagnosis and treatment of plaintiff's physical difficulties, whereby her uterus was unnecessarily removed and whereby she was physically incapacitated in described respects. Damages are claimed in a substantial amount.

Separate answers were filed by the defendants. After certain admissions and denials, each answer avers that the action is barred by the one-year statute of limitations, since it was brought more than one year after the termination of any professional relationship between plaintiff and the defendant.

Upon the trial of the action and at the close of the plaintiff's evidence in chief, Turowski was dismissed as a defendant upon motion of plaintiff's counsel. The jury's verdict was in favor of Sheppard and against the hospital in the amount of $25,000. Judgment was rendered on the verdict, and the cause was then appealed to the Court of Appeals on questions of law. That court affirmed the judgment without written opinion, and the cause is now here for review and determination upon the allowance of a motion to certify the record.

Chastang & Carroll, Columbus, and Metzenbaum, Gaines, Schwartz, Krupansky & Stern, Cleveland, for appellant.

Spangenberg, Hasenflue & Shibley, Cleveland, for appellee.

ZIMMERMAN, Judge.

Plaintiff, a patient of Turowski, was hospitalized by him in Bay View Hospital in April 1955, where a biopsy was performed. The biopsy material was submitted to a Dr. Haws, a pathologist, who had a salary contract with the hospital to do pathological work but who was ostensibly connected and associated with the hospital. The bills covering Haws' services to hospital patients were rendered by the hospital, and his pathological reports were made under the name of the hospital. In answer to an interrogatory, the jury found Haws to be an agent by estoppel of the hospital. See Klema, Admx., v. St. Elizabeth's Hospital of Youngstown, 170 Ohio St. 519, 166 N.E.2d 765.

Haws diagnosed plaintiff's condition as carcinoma of the cervix. Upon such diagnosis and upon the recommendation of Turowski and Sheppard, plaintiff underwent a hysterectomy on April 29, 1955, Sheppard being the surgeon. Plaintiff left the hospital on May 6, 1955, but returned periodically for observation and checkups, which was the customary and usual procedure in cancer cases. Her relationship in these respects with the hospital ended on February 18, 1956. Thereafter, it was definitely and conclusively determined by other physicians that plaintiff had never been afflicted with a cancerous condition and that Haws had grossly misinterpreted the biopsy material.

Plaintiff commenced the present action on February 16, 1957, which was within one year from the date she finally severed connections with the hospital and within two years of the erroneous diagnosis. In a special charge, the trial court instructed the jury as follows:

'Bay View Hospital asserts the defense of the statute of limitations. In a case of this character, where the plaintiff's claim against the hospital is based upon medical acts or services performed, the applicable statute of limitations is one year from the time the plaintiff's cause of action accrued. The plaintiff's cause of action is not deemed to accrue until such time as the hospital-patient relationship is terminated with respect to the medical services undertaken by the hospital for the particular medical or surgical condition of the patient.

'In this case the plaintiff's action against Bay View Hospital was not commenced until February 16, 1957.

'If you find, from a consideration of all the evidence, that Bay View Hospital and Betty Lundberg terminated the hospital-patient relationship in May of 1955 or before February 16, 1956, then her cause of action would be barred by the statute of limitations. On the other hand, if you find that Betty Lundberg entered into a hospitalpatient relationship for hospital care which came to include medical services of the hospital relating to the condition of a diagnosed and operated cancer; and if you further find that the hospital-patient relationship continued and was intended by both parties to continue for a course of regular cancer checkups in the hospital following her surgery and using the medical services of the hospital; and if you further find that such relationship was still in existence and had not been terminated before February 16, 1956, then the plaintiff's cause of action against said hospital is not barred by the statute of limitations.'

It is the established law of Ohio that the...