Sacchetti v. Springer

• Decision Date: 07 July 1939
• Citation: 303 Mass. 480,22 N.E.2d 42
• Parties: ELEANOR SACCHETTI v. ERNEST SPRINGER.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

303 Mass. 480

22 N.E.2d 42

ELEANOR SACCHETTI v. ERNEST SPRINGER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

July 7, 1939

October 7, 1937.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., DONAHUE LUMMUS, & QUA, JJ.

Actionable Tort. Damages, For tort. Negligence, Physician. Judgment.

A plaintiff, who has recovered full damages in an action for personal injuries against a city at the trial of which there was no instruction to the jury that would have prevented them from awarding damages for any aggravation of his injury due to negligence of a physician who had attended him for his injury before the trial, could not afterwards maintain an action against the physician for negligence in that treatment.

TORT. Writ in the Superior Court dated November 16, 1931. There was a finding for the defendant by Sisk, J. The case was submitted on briefs in this court.

F. Juggins, B.

Kaplan, & M Hirsh, for the plaintiff.

J. N. Clark, for the defendant.

LUMMUS, J. The plaintiff sustained bodily injury on April 11, 1931, by reason of an alleged defect in a way in Boston, and on June 2, 1931, brought an action against the city for damages under G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 84, Section 15. On May 28, 1935, she obtained a verdict for $3,000, and afterwards the defendant waived motions by which it had attacked the verdict. By agreement judgment was entered for $3,000 and costs on June 21, 1935, and the execution was returned satisfied in full.

On November 16 1931, she brought the present action of tort against the physician who treated her injury, after her left leg had become swollen and septic, from about April 15, 1931, until April 21, 1931. He advised injections of serum to counteract the septic condition. This advice, the plaintiff alleges, was negligent, and the injections aggravated the injury.

At the trial of the action against the city, the entire course of the injury and suffering of the plaintiff up to the time of the trial was put in evidence. There was evidence that her injury resulted in erysipelas, and that various parts of her body were affected. The judge instructed the jury that any injuries, temporary or permanent, that resulted from the original injury (which was described as an "abrasion"), were injuries for which the plaintiff was entitled to recover from the city. He added: "This is her day in court. It is the only time that she can come before a jury asking for compensation for injuries resulting from this particular set of facts." There was no instruction that would prevent the jury from awarding damages for any aggravation of the injury caused by negligence of the present defendant. The jury knew that damages could be awarded up to $4,000. G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 84, Section 15. They awarded $3,000.

The law is well settled that, in an action of tort for negligence causing bodily injury, the negligence of a physician, properly chosen, in treating that injury does not destroy the causal connection between that injury and the consequent suffering even so much of the suffering as arises from the negligent treatment and would not have arisen if the injury had been properly treated. Gray v. Boston Elevated Railway, 215 Mass. 143 , 147, 148. Burns's Case, 218 Mass. 8 , 11. Purchase v. Seelye, 231 Mass. 434 , 436, 437. Vatalaro v. Thomas, 262 Mass. 383 , 387. Atamian's Case, 265 Mass. 12 , 15. Jordan v Orcutt, 279 Mass. 413 , 416. McDonald v. Employers'...