Marchand v. Bellin
| Decision Date | 17 June 1914 |
| Citation | 147 N.W. 1033,158 Wis. 184 |
| Parties | MARCHAND v. BELLIN. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, Brown County; Samuel D. Hastings, Judge.
Action by Louis Marchand against Julius J. Bellin. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Action for malpractice. On the 23d of January, 1912, plaintiff, aged 52, by falling from a ladder, sustained a severe Potts' fracture of the left foot, in which the fibula was somewhat splintered and the ligaments of the ankle joint ruptured. He went to the defendant the same day for treatment. Owing to the swelling of the joint and an abrasion of the skin, the defendant did not invert the foot for fear of gangrene. The swelled condition, under the treatment given, continued till February 13th before beginning to abate, and the joint healed without an inversion of the foot, leaving the foot inverted, much less useful, and more painful than it would have been, had it been properly inverted before bony union took place. At the close of plaintiff's evidence the court ordered a nonsuit on the ground that plaintiff failed to show that the treatment given him was not proper as applied to the kind and degree of fracture he was suffering from and the conditions that developed. From such judgment of nonsuit the plaintiff appealed.Minahan & Minahan, of Green Bay, for appellant.
Freeman & Geilfuss, of Milwaukee (P. H. Martin, of Green Bay, of counsel), for respondent.
VINJE, J. (after stating the facts as above).
[1] A Potts' fracture is a fracture of the lower part of the fibula, accompanied with injury to the ankle joint, so that the foot is dislocated outward. Webster's New Int. Dict. The evidence shows that plaintiff's fracture was a very severe one, in which the fibula was splintered and the ligaments of the ankle joint ruptured; that the foot was very much swelled and discolored, and the skin partly abraded in places at the time of the first treatment. As to its condition at that time, January 23d, and from then till about the 13th of February, there is no evidence other than that of the defendant, and if his evidence as to the conditions existing and treatment given is true then he was guilty of no malpractice. But plaintiff's counsel insists that, since the evidence shows the conditions testified to by defendant do not usually obtain in ordinary Potts' fractures for so long a time, the jury had a right to find that they did not in the instant case. Hence, since it was shown that in cases of ordinary Potts' fractures the danger of gangrene was usually passed in from seven to ten days, and since bony union does not take place until the third week, the jury might find malpractice from failure to invert the foot after danger of gangrene had passed and before bony union took place. All agree there should be no inversion of the foot until the danger from gangrene had passed.
[2] The difficulty with this contention is that plaintiff's fracture was not an...
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