Parrott v. Chatham County Hospital Authority, 55024
| Decision Date | 09 February 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 55024,55024,2 |
| Citation | 243 S.E.2d 269,145 Ga.App. 113 |
| Parties | Carmen E. PARROTT, b/n/f v. CHATHAM COUNTY HOSPITAL AUTHORITY et al |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Falligant, Kent & Toporek, Charles W. Barrow, A. Martin Kent, Savannah, for appellant.
Oliver, Maner & Gray, William P. Franklin, Jr., Thomas S. Gray, Jr., Savannah, for appellees.
Carmen Eugene Parrott, a minor, by and through his next friend and guardian, Betty Lou Parrott, appeals from the grant of a directed verdict in favor of the hospital authority and named doctors in his suit to recover damages for pain and suffering due to the defendants' alleged negligence in failing to timely diagnose and treat his fractured skull.
Parrott was injured and taken to the emergency room of the Memorial Medical Center in Chatham County, where he was treated for a laceration of the scalp and x-rays were taken. Upon his return from the x-ray department he and his parents were told by an unknown person that he could go home. The attending physician did not receive the x-rays showing that there was a skull fracture until five days later, at which time he was treated therefor.
The sole contention enumerated is that it was error for the trial court to direct a verdict in favor of the defendants on the question of liability where the evidence showed that the injury produced pain, that x-rays were taken, that the x-rays disclosed a depressed skull fracture, and that the patient was allowed to leave the hospital without having been treated and was not treated for a five or six day period during which time the pain continued. Plaintiffs concede that it was established conclusively that the six-day delay caused no permanent disability. They argue, however, that they are entitled to recover because the defendants' failure to diagnose and treat the injury caused Parrott six additional days of unnecessary and unalleviated pain and suffering.
We do not agree. There was no medical evidence to show that had Parrott been treated for skull fracture at the time of his initial appearance in the emergency room his pain and discomfort would have been less or different from that actually suffered. "If the damages are only the imaginary or possible result of the tortious act, or other and contingent circumstances preponderate largely in causing the injurious effect, such damages are too remote to be the basis of recovery against the wrongdoer." Code § 105-2008.
Parrott relies upon Atlanta Transit System v. Smith, 141 Ga.App. 87, 88(2), 232 S.E.2d 580 (1977) to support his assertion that the failure to render aid constituted negligence, even though no medical evidence was presented to support such a contention. That case, however, turned upon the bus driver's failure to render aid in contravention of a statutory requirement (see Code Ann. § 68-1620), and was not a medical malpractice suit.
Nor do we find Norton v. Hamilton, 92 Ga.App. 727, 89 S.E.2d 809 (1955) to be controlling, as insisted. There the defendant doctor had contracted to give prenatal care and deliver the plaintiff's baby. Subsequently, after four requests to come to her bedside to attend her during severe labor pains, the doctor told the...
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