McGuire v. Hughes

• Decision Date: 11 March 1913
• Citation: 207 N.Y. 516,101 N.E. 460
• Parties: McGUIRE v. HUGHES.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

207 N.Y. 516

101 N.E. 460

McGUIRE

v.HUGHES.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 11, 1913.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.

Action by Constantine J. McGuire against Margaret E. Hughes. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (141 App. Div. 933,126 N. Y. Supp. 1137), affirming a decision of the Appellate Term affirming a judgment of dismissal, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

See, also, 142 App. Div. 939, 127 N. Y. Supp. 1111.

Edward J. Connolly, of Brooklyn, for appellant.

Charles Strauss, of New York City, for respondent.

GRAY, J.

This action was brought to recover the reasonable value of services rendered by the plaintiff as a physician, at the request of the defendant, to the latter's daughter, a married woman living with her husband. The plaintiff was nonsuited at the trial, which was had in the City Court of the city of New York, and the judgment entered in favor of the defendant, dismissing the complaint, has been affirmed by the Appellate Term and by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. Leave was then given to the plaintiff to further appeal to this court.

[1] The plaintiff did not allege, nor does he pretend, that there was any express promise by the defendant to pay him for his services; but relies upon the facts as raising an implied agreement on her part to do so. These facts, taking them, as we should, in their most favorable light upon the plaintiff's case, show that, on November 1st, the defendant called the plaintiff upon the telephone, informed him that her daughter was seriously ill, and asked him to see her. He told her that he ‘could not go without the consent of the daughter's husband.’ Subsequently, on November 12th, the plaintiff had an interview, at his office, with the defendant and her son-in-law, Mr. Bradley. The defendant introduced her son-in-law and, in his presence, asked him if he would go up and see her daughter. Plaintiff said he was satisfied to go. To quote his testimony with respect to that interview, he said ‘that the introduction of Mr. Bradley by Mrs. Hughes was giving the consent to my going to see his wife.’ He had no conversation with Mr. Bradley, who thereupon left. Plaintiff then went with the defendant and made an examination of the patient, as the result of which he informed Mrs. Hughes that he would like to withdraw from the case, because of the particularly grave condition of her daughter. To this she replied by appealing to him to stay in the case, saying: ‘Doctor, you have been my friend; you have attended my family; you have attended my husband and our children; and I beg of you, for God's sake, don't desert Maude.’ (Maude being the name of the patient.) The plaintiff had been the defendant's family physician; but he had never attended the Bradleys. He continued in attendance upon the patient, rendering professional services, until some time in January, when she died. Nothing appears to have been said, at any time, with reference to the payment for plaintiff's services.

[2] The only question upon this appeal is whether the defendant came under any obligation to the plaintiff. That turns upon whether the law will imply a promise on her part to compensate him. If we might assume the existence of a moral obligation, that would not determine that a legal, or enforceable, obligation existed. The rule in the United States has generally been that a physician is entitled to recover for his services, if not under an express contract therefor, then under an implied agreement to pay quantum meruit, differing, in earlier times, from the rule at common law, which, in England, before the passage of the Medical Act of 1858, in the absence of a special agreement, denied to the physician the right to sue for his professional services; the theory of any payment to him being that of an honorarium. Gibbon v. Budd, 2 H. & C. 92; Battersby v. Lawrence, Cr. & M. 277.

[3] The general rule tat, where a person requests of another the performance of services, which are performed, the law implies a promise by the former to pay their reasonable value, has no application in the case of a physician, rendering professional services to a third person, if the relation to the patient of the person, who requests them, be not such as imports the legal obligation to provide them. The courts below have followed the authority of Crane v. Baudouine, 55 N. Y. 256, though there was a division in opinion at the Appellate Division as to its application.

[4] I think that it has been correctly held to be decisive of the question before us. In that case the plaintiff, a physician, was called in to attend the daughter of the defendant, who was lying ill at the latter's house. She was of age, married, and living with her husband, and had been brought there at her mother's request. There being no proof of any express promise to pay the plaintiff for his services, the question of a promise to be implied from the facts was considered by Judge Folger, who spoke for the court. He observed that ‘the relations between the defendant and her (his daughter) were not such as that there was upon him such obligation. She was much past her majority; * * * ...