O'Quin v. Baptist Memorial Hosp.
| Decision Date | 03 May 1947 |
| Citation | 201 S.W.2d 694,184 Tenn. 570 |
| Parties | O'QUIN v. BAPTIST MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Shelby County; John W. Wilson, Judge.
Suit by T. I. O'Quin, administrator of Clovis Higgins, deceased against the Baptist Memorial Hospital to recover for injuries resulting in the death of the deceased who was shot by police officers while a patient at the hospital. From a judgment sustaining the defendant's motion for peremptory instruction and dismissing the suit, the plaintiff appealed to the Court of Appeals. To review a judgment of the Court of Appeals reversing the trial court's judgment, the defendant brings certiorari.
Judgment of the Court of Appeals reversed and trial court's judgment affirmed.
See also, 182 Tenn. 558, 188 S.W.2d 346.
W. C. Rodgers, of Memphis, for plaintiff in error.
John W McCall and McDonald, McDonald & Kuhn, all of Memphis, for defendant in error.
This is a suit for damages for personal injuries resulting in the death of Clovis Higgins by being shot by two Memphis police officers while a patient of the defendant, Baptist Memorial Hospital. There was a jury trial, and at the close of the plaintiff's proof the court sustained the defendant's motion for a peremptory instruction and dismissed the suit of the plaintiff. On appeal in error to the Court of Appeals that Court reversed the judgment of the trial court, holding that there was evidence of negligence on the part of the hospital. Certiorari has been granted and argument heard.
The negligence complained of is that while the deceased, Clovis Higgins, was a pay patient in the hospital and temporarily deranged he was shot by two police officers of the City of Memphis who had been summoned by employees of the hospital to restrain him.
On February 19, 1941, the deceased, a young man about 29 years of age, was brought to the hospital by his father and brother from his home near Forrest City, Arkansas. He was assigned to a room in the hospital late in the afternoon and was in fairly good condition at that time. The record discloses that the deceased was carried to the hospital for treatment of epilepsy, from which he had suffered for some time. His physician in Arkansas advised his father to come to Memphis and consult a prominent diagnostician, resulting in the deceased being placed in the hospital. It seems that after the deceased entered the hospital sometime during the early part of the night he was given a spinal puncture. The father and brother remained with him. The father was a rather elderly man but the brother was middle-aged, strong, and weighed about 180 pounds. In the early morning about 5 or 5:30 the deceased became restless and unruly and insisted on putting on his clothes, which he did. He thereupon left his room and started down the hall and entered the room of another patient, which caused a disturbance, and he then went on down the stairway, and when he reached the ground floor, instead of going out, he went down to be basement, where the heating equipment of the hospital is located. The basement is a large room in which there are three large boilers and a lot of pipes and electrical machinery. After the deceased left his room, his brother undertook to stop him and a scuffle resulted, and the deceased bit his brother on the arm. When the deceased entered the boiler room there were several other people there--employees of the hospital--but Joe Cannon seems to have been the only person who later saw the shooting; the others having left hurriedly. After the scuffle between the deceased and his brother, some one at the hospital telephoned the police department and in about five minutes two policemen appeared and went on down the steps to the boiler room. When the officers arrived the father and brother were at the basement stairway near the entrance to the boiler room, and the father said to the officers that his son was out of his mind and not to hurt him, and the officers replied that they would get him. When the policemen entered the furnace room the deceased picked up an old water pipe about four feet long and struck one of the policemen and broke his arm, and then turned and walked around in the boiler room and advanced on the second policemen, who told him to stop two or three times, which the deceased did not do but continued to advance on him with the pipe, and when the deceased had reached a distance of about 10 or 12 feet from the second policeman, the latter shot him four or five times and killed him instantly.
It appears that there were two other patients in the room assigned to the deceased, who did not have a special nurse, but his father and brother stayed in the room with him, not as nurses, but to care for him if he needed attention and because they thought he would be better satisfied if they remained with him.
The witness Joe Cannon, fireman at the hospital, was the only eyewitness to the shooting, and he testified substantially to the facts as stated above.
The defendant hospital denies liability (1) because it is a charitable institution and therefore not liable for the negligence of its agents and servants, and (2) also because the policemen were not its agents in the matter wherein deceased lost his life.
The hospital cannot avail itself of the first defense, because the freedom from liability extends no further than the protection of the trust property. Hammond Post No. 3, Inc., American Legion, v. Willis, 179 Tenn. 226, 165 S.W.2d 78. In that case this Court said at pages 232 and 233 of 179 Tenn., at page 80 of 165 S.W.2d:
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...may require, and the extent and character of this care depends upon the circumstances of each case," O'Quin v. Baptist Mem'l Hosp., 184 Tenn. 570, 201 S.W.2d 694, 697 (1947), and that "[w]hen a patient enters a hospital ... he is entitled to such reasonable attention as his safety may requi......
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...James v. Turner, 184 Tenn. 563, 201 S.W.2d 691; O'Quin v. Baptist Memorial Hospital, 184 Tenn. 570, 201 S.W.2d 694, 697. In O'Quin v. Baptist Memorial Hospital, supra, our Court stated the duty of such a hospital in these words: 'The general rule is that a hospital is required to exercise s......
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