Mounds Park Hospital v. Von Eye

• Decision Date: 28 June 1957
• Docket Number: No. 15697.,15697.
• Citation: 245 F.2d 756
• Parties: MOUNDS PARK HOSPITAL, a/k/a N. W. Baptist Hospital Association, Appellant, v. Evelyn VON EYE and Dr. E. M. Hammes, Sr., Dr. E. M. Hammes, Jr., and Dr. D. D. Norman, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

245 F.2d 756 (1957)

MOUNDS PARK HOSPITAL, a/k/a N. W. Baptist Hospital Association, Appellant, v. Evelyn VON EYE and Dr. E. M. Hammes, Sr., Dr. E. M. Hammes, Jr., and Dr. D. D. Norman, Appellees.

No. 15697.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

June 28, 1957.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Bergmann Richards, Minneapolis, Minn. (Melvin D. Heckt, Greer E. Lockhart and Richards, Janes, Hoke, Montgomery & Cobb, Minneapolis, Minn., on the brief), for appellant.

Lawrence O. Larson, Minneapolis, Minn. (James P. Rorris and Eugene L. Heck, Minneapolis, Minn., on the brief), for appellee Evelyn Von Eye.

James H. Geraghty, St. Paul, Minn. (Lipschultz, Altman, Geraghty & Mulally, St. Paul, Minn., on the brief), for appellees Dr. E. M. Hammes, Sr., et al.

Before GARDNER, Chief Judge, and VOGEL and VAN OOSTERHOUT, Circuit Judges.

GARDNER, Chief Judge.

Appellee Evelyn Von Eye brought this action against appellant Mounds Park Hospital and appellees Dr. E. M. Hammes, Sr., Dr. E. M. Hammes, Jr. and Dr. D. D. Norman to recover damages on account of personal injuries suffered by her by reason of the alleged negligence of said defendants in permitting her to escape from the hospital of defendant Mounds Park Hospital by jumping from a window located on the second floor of the hospital.

The parties will be referred to either by name or as they were designated in the trial court. Plaintiff is the twenty-six year old wife of a South Dakota farmer and the mother of three small children. The defendant Mounds Park Hospital is a private hospital located in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is a hospital caring for medical, surgical, obstetrical and psychiatric patients. The defendant doctors are all specialists known in the profession as psychiatrists.

In her complaint plaintiff alleged that while she was a patient of defendant doctors and was being hospitalized at the defendant hospital the defendant doctors and defendant hospital carelessly, negligently and unskillfully cared for and treated her and that as the proximate result thereof on November 8, 1954, she fell or jumped through a window, causing her numerous and severe injuries. For the injuries so suffered she sought judgment against the defendants jointly and severally.

The defendant doctors filed separate answer denying that they were negligent or that any negligence on their part was the proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries and alleged that if plaintiff sustained injuries and damages as a result of any negligence, such negligence was that of the plaintiff which caused or contributed to cause said accident, or was the negligence of others.

The hospital by its answer denied that it was negligent or that its negligence proximately caused plaintiff's injuries and counterclaimed for hospital services rendered plaintiff.

The action was tried to the court and a jury. At the close of plaintiff's evidence in chief, on motion of defendant doctors, the court directed a verdict in their favor. The defendant hospital did not assert a cross-claim against defendant doctors nor did it allege in its answer that plaintiff's injuries resulted from any negligence of defendant doctors and, hence, the ruling of the court in directing a verdict in favor of the doctors is not properly before us.

At the close of plaintiff's evidence in chief the defendant Mounds Park Hospital moved for a directed verdict on the ground that there was no evidence of any malpractice or negligence on its part which caused or contributed to cause the accident and injuries complained of by plaintiff. The court denied this motion and at the close of all the evidence the motion was renewed and again denied by the court and the case was submitted to the jury on instructions to which defendant Mounds Park Hospital saved no exceptions but excepted to the denial of certain instructions requested by it to be hereinafter considered. The jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff in the amount of $39,380. Defendant Mounds Park Hospital moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or in the alternative for a new trial. This motion was denied and defendant has appealed and seeks reversal on the following grounds: (1) the trial court erred in denying the motion of defendant hospital for a directed verdict, (2) if the trial court did not err in denying the motion of defendant hospital for a directed verdict, then the court erred in directing a verdict in favor of the defendants Dr. E. M. Hammes, Sr., Dr. E. M. Hammes, Jr., and Dr. D. D. Norman, (3) the trial court erred in refusing to submit to the jury defendant hospital's requested instructions Nos. X, XIV and XVI as follows:

"X.

"You are further instructed that there is no evidence that plaintiff at any time before her accident on November 8, 1954, had ever attempted to injure herself or other patients or to commit suicide or to escape from the hospital.

"XIV.

"You are instructed that you cannot find that the defendant hospital was negligent in not putting plaintiff in restraints on November 8, 1954, or at any time prior thereto.

"XVI.

"You are instructed that the nurses at defendant hospital were charged with the duty of carrying out the instructions of plaintiff\'s three doctors except in case of emergency, and you are further instructed that there is no evidence that any emergency existed at any time on November 8, 1954, prior to the time of the actual happening of the accident which required defendant to have placed plaintiff in restraints or to have placed a nurse or guard in constant attendance or to have placed plaintiff in a locked ward."

and (4) the trial court erred in excluding relevant testimony of Dr. E. M. Hammes, Sr., Dr. E. M. Hammes, Jr., and Dr. D. D. Norman, relating to the care exercised by the defendant hospital with respect to the plaintiff on the ground of privilege.

Appellant, by moving for a directed verdict at the close of all the evidence, has challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the judgment. In considering the question of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the judgment we must view the evidence in a light most favorable to the prevailing party. We must assume that the jury resolved all conflicts in the evidence in favor of plaintiff and she is entitled to the benefit of all such favorable inferences as may reasonably be drawn from the facts proven and if, when so viewed, reasonable minds might differ as to the facts, then the case presents questions of fact to be decided by the jury and not issues of law to be determined by the court. Gunning v. Cooley, 281 U.S. 90, 50 S.Ct. 231, 74 L.Ed. 720; Chicago Great Western Railway Company v. Casura, 8 Cir., 234 F.2d 441; Chicago Great Western Ry. Co. v. Scovel, 8 Cir., 232 F.2d 952; Wellshear v. Brown, 8 Cir., 231 F.2d 612.

While a hospital is not an insurer of a patient's safety it owes its patients the duty of protection and must exercise such reasonable care toward a patient as his known condition may require and the duty of care imposed on a hospital extends to safeguarding the patient from dangers due to mental incapacity where that mental incapacity is known or by the exercise of ordinary care ought to have been known. Sylvester v. Northwestern Hospital of Minneapolis, 236 Minn. 384, 53 N.W.2d 17. Plaintiff was suffering from schizophrenia with paranoid tendencies and there was evidence that the behavior of one suffering from schizophrenia with paranoid tendencies is unpredictable and this fact finds support in the evidence in the instant case.

Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the plaintiff it appears that plaintiff, a twenty-six year old, happily married farm wife and mother of three children, in July of 1954 displayed certain symptoms of mental illness. Her symptoms grew worse and on October 18, 1954, on the advice of her sister, a registered nurse in the employ of defendant hospital, she was brought to St. Paul, Minnesota, to consult Dr. E. M. Hammes, Sr., a psychiatrist. Plaintiff's history was taken in the consulting room of defendant hospital and the doctor recommended that she be admitted to the hospital for observation and on the doctor's recommendation she was so admitted and assigned to a double room on the second floor in the psychiatric department of the hospital. A portion of the first and second floors in defendant hospital is devoted to the care of psychiatric patients. On the first floor of the hospital there is an open and a closed psychiatric department. In the closed department the hall doors are kept locked and the windows are screened and barred. The hospital is "L" shaped and the second floor is traversed by a corridor which is also "L" shaped and passes approximately through the center of that part of the building so that rooms on either side of this corridor open into the corridor. The longer part of the corridor is designated in the record as corridor "A" while the "L" portion of the corridor constituting an extension of corridor "A" is designated as corridor "B". The "L" portion of the corridor is divided into two parts by a door. That portion of the second floor sometimes referred to in the record as the psychiatric department has a capacity sufficient to accommodate thirty-six or thirty-seven psychiatric patients. Plaintiff was assigned to a double room designated as No. 226, which is located so that it opens onto the "L" portion of the corridor, and there are three rooms intervening between room No. 226 and the angle of the "L" shaped corridor so that the entrance to and from her room could not be seen by one in the so-called "A" corridor unless he were at the angle created by the conjunction of corridors "A" and "B". A portion of the second floor of the hospital was devoted to and constituted the obstetric department. This obstetric department, so-called, was on either side of corridor "B" and the doors of the rooms of that department opened on that portion of the corridor. There intervened between room No. 226...