Rule by Rule v. Lutheran Hospitals & Homes Soc. of America
| Decision Date | 29 December 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-1058,87-1058 |
| Citation | 835 F.2d 1250 |
| Parties | Lucas James RULE, by Father & Next of Friend, Clarence RULE, and Patricia Rule, Appellees, v. LUTHERAN HOSPITALS & HOMES SOCIETY OF AMERICA, Appellants. Hall M. Pumphrey, Louis Bunting. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Thomas J. Walsh, Omaha, Neb., for appellants.
Frederick C. Gray, Tampa, Fla., for appellees.
Before BOWMAN, Circuit Judge, ROSS, Senior Circuit Judge, and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.
This appeal arises out of a negligence action against Lutheran Hospitals & Homes Society of America (Lutheran). Clarence and Patricia Rule brought this action on their own behalves and on behalf of their son, Lucas Rule, for birth injuries received by Lucas during a breech delivery at Thayer County Memorial Hospital in Hebron, Nebraska. The Thayer County Hospital is operated by Lutheran. The Rules alleged that Lutheran was negligent in failing to investigate the qualifications of Dr. Harold Pumphrey, who delivered Lucas, and in granting Dr. Pumphrey privileges to perform certain medical procedures which he was not qualified to perform without supervision. The jury returned a verdict of $650,000 in favor of the Rules, and Lutheran appeals.
The negligence of Dr. Pumphrey is not disputed on this appeal. For reversal, Lutheran contends that the district court 1 erred in refusing to grant Lutheran's motion for directed verdict and motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict because there was insufficient evidence that any negligence by the hospital in granting certain privileges to Dr. Pumphrey was the proximate cause of Lucas Rule's injuries. Lutheran also alleges error in the jury instructions. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
Under the applicable Nebraska law, proximate cause exists if the injury would not have occurred but for the negligence, the injury was the natural and probable result of the negligence, and there was no efficient intervening cause. Greening by Greening v. School Dist., 223 Neb. 729, 735, 393 N.W.2d 51, 56 (1986).
In reviewing the district court's denial of Lutheran's motion for directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, this court is to: a) consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs as the prevailing parties; b) assume that the jury resolved all conflicts in the evidence in the plaintiffs' favor; c) assume as true all facts which the plaintiffs' evidence tended to prove; d) give the plaintiffs the benefit of all favorable inferences which reasonably may be drawn from the facts proved; and e) affirm the district court's denial of the motions if, in light of the above, reasonable jurors could differ as to the conclusions to be drawn from the evidence. Hall v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 813 F.2d 137, 138-39 (8th Cir.1987). An order entering judgment notwithstanding the verdict is proper only if the evidence points all one way and is susceptible of no reasonable inferences sustaining the position of the nonmoving party. Gilkerson v. Toastmaster, Inc., 770 F.2d 133, 136 (8th Cir.1985).
In consideration of the above, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the Rules. Dr. Pumphrey submitted his application for staff privileges to the Thayer County Memorial Hospital in 1979. On the application form, Dr. Pumphrey noted his medical education and prior medical experience and listed the names of the three hospitals where he had previously been granted staff privileges. Further, Dr. Pumphrey submitted a checklist of the specific medical procedures for which he requested privileges at the Thayer County Hospital. Among the obstetric privileges sought by Dr. Pumphrey was a category called "major medical or surgical complications of pregnancy." Testimony at trial indicated that this category included breech deliveries of primiparous (first-time) mothers.
The bylaws of the Thayer County Hospital provided that the hospital administrator was to investigate and verify the applicant's references and confirm the applicant's qualifications to perform the procedures for which privileges were sought. The application and supporting documents were then to be sent to the hospital's executive committee, which was to vote whether to grant privileges to the applicant. Finally, the application was to be sent to Lutheran's home office for review.
Despite the requirements of the bylaws, the hospital administrator at Thayer County, Marilyn Cooper, failed to do a complete investigation of Dr. Pumphrey. Cooper did not contact any of the three hospitals where Dr. Pumphrey previously had privileges. Rather, her complete investigation consisted of calling the director of a family residency program in which Dr. Pumphrey had participated in 1975-76 and again in 1979. The director told Cooper that Dr....
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