Rytkonen v. Lojacono
| Decision Date | 10 December 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 80.,80. |
| Citation | 269 Mich. 270,257 N.W. 703 |
| Parties | RYTKONEN v. LOJACONO. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Action by Lillian Rytkonen, special administratrix of the estate of P. Alfred Rytkonen, deceased, against Salvatore Lojacono. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.
Reversed for a new trial.
See, also, 267 Mich. 361, 255 N. W. 207.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Marquette County; Frank A. Bell, judge.
Argued before the Entire Bench.
Douglas, Barbour, Desenberg & Purdy, of Detroit, for appellant.
M. J. Kennedy, of Ishpeming, for appellee.
Plaintiff had judgment of $8,000 in action for negligent medical malpractice.
Her husband, a druggist, contracted tuberculosis in 1925. On advice of the Mayo Clinic, he entered a sanatorium in Colorado and remained a year. On leaving, he was advised to continue pneumothorax treatments and to see defendant for them. Defendant was in charge of Morgan Heights Sanatorium, a county tuberculosis hospital at Marquette. After two months at the sanatorium under defendant's care, deceased returned home, but continued to receive pneumothorax treatments from defendant monthly from February, 1927 to January, 1931. During that time he worked for his brother in a moving picture theater at a wage of $25 per week, handling advertising and taking tickets. Plaintiff also worked for wages part of the time. In 1930 deceased again visited the Mayo Clinic and was advised to have a thoracoplasty, a major operation.
On January 22, 1931, deceased had influenza, with bronchial complications, and his doctor advised him to again enter defendant's sanatorium. He did so, and remained until his death, March 19th. Defendant found fluid in deceased's left lung. On January 30th a phrenectomy was performed by Dr. John Alexander of the University of Michigan, with deceased's written consent. At times defendant removed pus from the lung by aspiration. On February 28th he discovered that a sinus had formed between the pleural cavity and the outside, and two days later he began permanent drainage by means of a catheter inserted between the ribs and connected with a longer tube. The catheter bothered the patient, and on March 16th defendant removed it and inserted a tube three or four inches long, which he anchored by wrapping adhesive tape around it with the ends stuck on the chest to keep the tube from working into the body. The next morning the tube was missing. It had slipped into the body, and, on an autopsy, was found lodged along the spinal column.
March 13th defendant had requested plaintiff to call in a surgeon for consultation relative to her husband's condition. She engaged Dr. McIntyre, who promised to see the patient, but did not do so. After repeated requests from plaintiff, and after defendant had told him about losing the tube, Dr. McIntyre went to the sanatorium, saw the X-ray and fluoroscope findings, but did not see the patient, and, on consultation with defendant, they agreed that a rib resection operation be performed, the operation involving removal of a portion of a rib to permit better drainage. The operation was performed at the sanatorium in defendant's presence on March 19th by Drs. McIntyre and Hartt, and the patient died a few hours later.
The negligence claimed is that defendant failed to properly fasten the short drainage tube, proper practice requiring that, in addition to taping, a safety pin be inserted into or through the tube to prevent it slipping into the body; that he caused the operation to be performed without consent of the patient or plaintiff and without disclosing to them that the tube had been lost in the pleural cavity; that the operation was unnecessary to the patient's welfare, but in fact was performed to recover the tube; that the operation was negligently performed, in that delays were caused on two occasions during its progress by failure to have necessary surgical supplies at hand; and that delay and shock to the patient were caused by the surgeons, at defendant's request, exploring the chest with their fingers to locate the tube.
Most of the defendant's complaints are directed to the admission of testimony. The most serious concerns the testimony of Dr. Talso. An outstanding element of plaintiff's case was that defendant was negligent in not using the safety pin method of fastening the short drainage tube. Defendant said he had always used the method he meployed in the instant case and never before had lost a tube. Other physicians, for the defense, said the method used by defendant was in accord with proper practice, although most or all of them generally used a safety pin. Plaintiff's medical witnesses said the customary practice of the community and like places was to use a safety pin, some said they had never seen any other method used, but they did not say the method employed by defendant was not recognized as proper practice.
Examination of Dr. Talso, the local physician who performed the autopsy, was directed to his own methods of practice, characteristic but separated excerpts being:
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Smith v. Beard
... ... no answer. It was wholly immaterial what he always did and ... was inadmissible as against the defendant. Rytkonen v ... Lojacono, 269 Mich. 270, 274, 257 N.W. 703. Furthermore, ... the unanimous testimony of the physician was that they would ... first want ... ...
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Cox v. Flint Bd. of Hosp. Managers
...and work in similar localities." See also Rubenstein v. Purcell, 276 Mich. 433, 437, 267 N.W. 646 (1936). In Rytkonen v. Lojacono, 269 Mich. 270, 274, 257 N.W. 703 (1934), we The rule is firmly established that defendant was bound to use the degree of diligence and skill which is ordinarily......
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Siirila v. Barrios
...Other cases suggested for supporting exclusion of Dr. Matthews' testimony are equally inapposite. Thus, in Rytkonen v. Lojacono, 269 Mich. 270, 273--275, 257 N.W. 703 (1934), admission of expert testimony was deemed error because the witness failed to testify as to whether the method used b......
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Wiley v. Henry Ford Cottage Hosp.
...health care professional would act. Carbonell v. Bluhm, 114 Mich.App. 216, 224, 318 N.W.2d 659 (1982), citing Rytkonen v. Lojacono, 269 Mich. 270, 257 N.W. 703 (1934). The use of the pronoun "I" in discussing the standard of care is improper. Id. After a thorough review of Rice's testimony,......