Mississippi Baptist Hospital v. Holmes

• Citation: 214 Miss. 906,55 So.2d 142
• Decision Date: 19 November 1951
• Docket Number: No. 38038,38038
• Parties: , 25 A.L.R.2d 12 MISSISSIPPI BAPTIST HOSPITAL v. HOLMES et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi

Page 142

55 So.2d 142

214 Miss. 906, 25 A.L.R.2d 12

MISSISSIPPI BAPTIST HOSPITAL v. HOLMES et al.

No. 38038.

Supreme Court of Mississippi, in Banc.

Nov. 19, 1951.

Watkins & Eager, Butler, Snow & O'Mara, Jackson, for appellant.

Barnett, Jones & Montgomery, Jackson, for appellees.

McGEHEE, Chief Justice.

The widower and the children of Mrs. George R. Holmes brought this suit for damages and recovered a judgment in the sum of $25,000 against the Mississippi Baptist Hospital and one of its laboratory technicians on account of the death of the said Mrs. Holmes on June 18, 1949, which is alleged to have occurred as the proximate result of the negligent act of the technician done on the night of June 16, 1949, in mislabeling in her name the Type '2' blood intended for a Mrs. Holder (a patient in another room on the same floor of the hospital whose blood was typed as such by him on the same occasion) as being intended for use in connection with the blood transfusion to be given the next morning to Mrs. Holmes, whose blood had been correctly typed by this technician and found to be Type '4', and she was given a transfusion of about 700 c. c. of the Type '2' blood during a surgical operation on the next morning, approximately twenty-four hours prior to her death; and it was shown at the trial that as much as 500 c. c. or less of Type '2' blood given to a Type '4' patient is very dangerous and probably fatal unless the very grave condition that may be produced thereby can be timely relieved by corrective means, the use of which proved of no avail in the instant case.

As heretofore stated, the judgment for damages was against both the technician and the hospital, but only the latter has prosecuted an appeal, the former being obviously negligent.

The precise issues raised by the pleadings and developed under the proof are: (1) Whether or not the corporate defendant hospital was negligent either in failing to exercise reasonable care in the selection and employment of this laboratory technician or in retaining him in its employ under the facts and circumstances alleged to have been known to the hospital, or which should have been known by the exercise of reasonable care, prior to his having correctly typed and accurately cross-matched the blood of the two patients hereinbefore mentioned but which he negligently mislabeled as aforesaid; and (2) whether or not, while acting through this technician as its agent and employee, the hospital was negligent in permitting the samples of the blood of the deceased to become mixed and confused with that of another person, because of the mislabeling of the same, so as to result in the wrong type of blood being used and causing the death of this patient, thereby rendering the hospital liable in damages, notwithstanding that its managing officers and agents and its board of trustees may have exercised reasonable care in the selection, employment, and retention of the said employee in its service; and (3) assuming that there was no failure to exercise reasonable care in the selection, employment or retention of the said employee, but that nevertheless the death of this patient was proximately caused by his negligent act while engaged in the duties and acting within the scope of his employment, then whether or not the hospital would be relieved of liability for his negligence on the ground that it is chartered and operated as a charitable institution which has never issued any stock, has paid no profit or dividends to any of its incorporators or to its owner, the Mississippi State Baptist Convention, and has at all times devoted its entire income and revenues from every source to the payment of the expenses of its operation, including the compensation to its employees, the expansion of its facilities in the erection and maintenance of the buildings, and the furnishing of new equipment for carrying on its work of benevolence and charity in connection with its function as a general hospital, the charter of which provides that it may 'charge and collect fees and compensation from all persons, and for all services rendered, and may do charitable work.'

As to the issue first above stated, and on which issue along, together with whether or not the technician was negligent and his negligent act was the proximate cause of the patient's death, the case was submitted to the jury, under the rule announced by our previous decisions in the cases of Eastman, Gardiner & Co. v. Permenter, 111 Miss. 813, 72 So. 234; James v. Yazoo & M. V. Railroad Co., 153 Miss. 776, 121 So. 819; Miss. Baptist Hospital v. Moore, 156 Miss. 676, 126 So. 465, 67 A.L.R. 1116; Pace v. Methodist Hospital, Miss., 130 So. 468; Rhodes v. Millsaps College, 179 Miss. 596, 176 So. 253; and International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor of Mississippi v. Barnes, 204 Miss. 333, 37 So.2d 487, we have concluded, from a careful examination of the record of more than 1250 pages now before us, together with the briefs of approximately 440 pages filed by opposing counsel, that there is no substantial evidence to show that either the chief pathologist and director of the laboratory, Dr. Forrest G. Bratley, or the superintendent of the hospital, Mrs. Karenza Gilfoy, or the members of the board of trustees were guilty of any failure to exercise reasonable care in the selection and employment of the technician in question, or that they were guilty of any negligence whatsoever in retaining him in the employ of the hospital during his period of service from September 13, 1948, until the negligent act complained of was committed; and that, therefore, it was error for the case to have been submitted to the jury on that issue.

It would unduly prolong this essentially lengthy opinion if we should do more than summarize the evidence on which we base the foregoing conclusion. We deem it sufficient to say that the applicant came highly recommended by the chief pathologist and director of the laboratory at the U. S. Veterans Administration Hospitals, both at Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, under whom he had worked as a laboratory technician at these hospitals from July 6, 1946, to September 3, 1948, and also by the chief laboratory technician at the latter hospital where he had worked for all of said period except the first eleven months thereof; that he had previously served for a considerable time in the hospital corps of the U. S. Navy when he was taught by college professors and had satisfactorily completed several courses of preparatory training for his work as a laboratory technician; that according to the undisputed testimony of all the witnesses who testified on the subject, he proved his fitness and competency in such capacity as an employee of the appellant, Mississippi Baptist Hospital, from September 13, 1948, until the occasion of the negligent act herein complained of an September 16, 1949, even though it was shown that as a premedical student at college, during his spare time from night duty at the hospital, he failed on some of his studies, such as zoology, English composition, part of his organic chemistry, and European history, the lack of a thorough knowledge of which could not have reasonably caused him to mislabel the blood of Mrs. Holmes as being Type '2' after he had correctly typed the same as Type '4' blood. And the other circumstances relied upon by the plaintiffs as tending to show the technician's incompetence amounts to no more than a scintilla of evidence in that behalf of compared with his training, experience and proven ability as a competent man for the laboratory work for which he was employed. In other words, the case presents the tragic consequence alleged to have proximately resulted from the very negligent act of one who had theretofore shown himself highly competent to do the work that he was employed to do.

The foregoing conclusion has rendered it necessary that we consider the second and third issues hereinbefore stated in paragraph three of this opinion and determine whether or not we shall adhere to the rule announced in some or all of the cases already referred to, since the plaintiff requested, and was refused, a general peremptory instruction in their favor under all of the proof in the case.

As to the second issue stated in Paragraph 3 of this opinion, which involves the question of whether (a) the technician was guilty of negligence when he mislabeled the blood in the manner hereinbefore stated and thereby caused the wrong type of blood to be used in a transfusion for Mrs. Holmes when he knew, or should have known, as an experienced laboratory technician, that it would prove exceedingly dangerous to administer Type '2' blood to a Type '4' patient by a blood transfusion; and (b) whether or not his act in that behalf was the proximate, or a contributing, cause of her death, the answer is in the affirmative.

The procedure followed by the technician, according to the undisputed evidence, was that on the night of June 16, 1949, he received at the laboratory a written requisition from Dr. C. E. Lewis which called for the typing of the blood of his patient, Mrs. Holmes, who was in Room 412 of the hospital, in order that the same could be used for a blood transfusion on the next morning; that the technician proceeded to her room, drew some blood from her arm, poured the same in two tubes, which were similar to test tubes, and then proceeded to the nurse's desk on that floor where he obtained the routine laboratory slip from the chart of the patient which contained her admission number, the doctor's name, the name of the patient, the date of admission and who was responsible for the bill; that he thereupon rolled or folded this slip and placed it in a hole in a tray immediately behind the two holes thereon which contained the two tubes of blood, there being three of such holes in a row from front to rear, and the slip identifying the patient and her blood being placed in...