Miles v. Hoffman

• Decision Date: 31 December 1923
• Docket Number: 18215.
• Citation: 221 P. 316,127 Wash. 653
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: MILES v. HOFFMAN.

221 P. 316

127 Wash. 653

MILES v. HOFFMAN.

No. 18215.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 31, 1923

Department 1.

Appeal from Superior Court, Cowlitz County; Kirby, Judge.

Action by F. H. Miles against C.J. Hoffman. After a verdict for plaintiff, the court granted defendant's motion for a new trial, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

J. E Stone, of Kelso, and Miller, Wilkinson & Miller, of Vancouver, for appellant.

Bates &amp Peterson, of Tacoma, for respondent.

TOLMAN J.

This is a malpractice case. The jury found a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The trial court granted defendant's motion for a new trial, and the plaintiff has appealed from that order.

In his memorandum opinion granting the motion for a new trial, the court said:

'For the purpose of disposing of this motion there are three phases which this case may be logically divided into, and they are:

'(1) The treatment awarded plaintiff by defendant when defendant was first called to take charge of the case.

'(2) The care and treatment awarded plaintiff up until he was taken to the hospital.

'(3) The treatment which plaintiff received while at the hospital.

'In so far as the treatment first administered to plaintiff is concerned, I am unable to see wherein defendant could have been charged with negligence or with failure to use ordinary care. Defendant knew the source of the injury--that it had been inflicted by a mad boar. The extent of the penetration he nor no one else knew. He swabbed the wound with a cauterizing fluid, applied a wet pack to it and, as I recall, placed the knee in an improvised box splint. All of the medical men, except one, who were witnesses, testified that this was proper treatment of plaintiff's wound. Dr. Arnold, however, testified that this treatment was not proper or skillful, but in fact was contrary to the dictates of ordinary horse sense. He testified that the wound should have been opened at once so that the infection, if any, which had been carried into it by the tusk of the boar, could have been destroyed and the wound provided with proper drainage. On this point he was contradicted by the other experts, who claimed that it would have been dangerous to have opened the wound, as suggested by Dr. Arnold, for the reason that there was danger of spreading the infection which might have been carried into the wound by the boar's tusk and also of cutting the sack containing the kneejoint fluid.

'Irrespective of the merits of the claims of Dr. Arnold as to what was the proper treatment, and the contrary claims of the doctors testifying for defendant, it is apparent that what was proper treatment under the circumstances is a question to be determined by medical testimony. The treatment actually awarded plaintiff was, according to the great preponderance of the evidence, the treatment ordinarily awarded cases of this kind in this and similar localities. I understand the rule to be that where a physician awards the treatment ordinarily given, he cannot be held for malpractice because of bad results. Also, that if there are two or more methods of treating an injury, each having the sanction of the medical profession, the choice of one method to the exclusion of the others will not subject the practitioner to damages for malpractice.

'As to the treatment, care, and attention awarded to plaintiff after the wound had been cauterized, bandaged, and placed in a splint and before the patient was removed to the hospital, the court is of the opinion that there was no evidence of lack of skill or attention which would justify submitting this phase of the case to the jury. It seems to me that if the plaintiff followed the proper or usual method of treating the injury in the first instance then about all that could be done in caring for the injury thereafter and before the development of infection, if any would be to apply the treatment first awarded and await developments. Whether infection would develop or not was unknown, and, as before stated, the preponderance of the medical evidence showed that it was the proper practice to award the treatment given by defendant, await results, and put off the time of cutting into the wound until such time as infection might appear, which would justify a resort to the knife. All of this the defendant seems to have done, and as I view the case there was no negligence on the part

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