Scoggins v. Vicksburg Hospital, Inc.
| Decision Date | 14 January 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 40291,40291 |
| Citation | 229 Miss. 770,91 So.2d 837,70 A.L.R.2d 368 |
| Parties | , 70 A.L.R.2d 368 E. T. SCOGGINS v. VICKSBURG HOSPITAL, Inc. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
J. Wesley Miller, Rolling Fork, Prewitt & Bullard, Vicksburg, for appellant.
Dent, Ward & Mrtin, Vicksburg, for appellee.
The appellant, E. T. Scoggins, plaintiff in the court below, sued the appellee, Vicksburg Hospital, Incorporated, as defendant, in the Circuit Court of Warren County, for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by the appellant as a result of a newsboy entering the appellant's hospital room on January 27, 1954, while the appellant, who was a patient in the appellee's hospital, was asleep, and striking the appellant on the leg with a newspaper, thereby startling the appellant and causing him to jump or fall out of bed.
The plaintiff alleged in his declaration that he was admitted into the Vicksburg Hospital, which at that time was known as the 'Lutheran Hospital', on January 20, 1954, for a cataract operation on his left eye; that the operationg was performed on January 21, 1954, by Dr. Edley H. Jones; and that the plaintiff remained in the hospital for a period of approximately three weeks under the care and treatment of Dr. Jones; that the defendant corporation, knowing the condition of the plaintiff and the nature of the operation performed on his left eye, was under a duty to exercise more than ordinary care and to devote more than ordinary attention to him, considering the fact that he was highly nervous and had both eyes bandaged; but that the defendant corporation negligently failed in its duty to the plaintiff by allowing a newsboy to enter his room on January 27, 1954, while the plaintiff was lying on the bed asleep, and throw a newspaper at him, striking him on the leg, and startling him, and causing him to jump or fall out of bed, as a result of which a stitch was broken in his left eye causing an intraocular hemorrhage and a permanent impairment of his eyesight.
The defendant corporation in its answer admitted that the plaintiff was a patient in the hospital during the time mentioned in the plaintiff's declaration, and that an operation was performed by Dr. Jones on January 21, 1954, for the removal of a cataract from the plaintiff's left eye; but the defendant denied each and every allegation of negligence contained in the declaration.
The case was tried before a jury at the October 1955 term of the court, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant. A judgment was then entered in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff filed a motion for a new trial, which was overruled; and from the judgment rendered against him the plaintiff has prosecuted this appeal.
Three errors are assigned and argued as grounds for reversal of the judgment of the lower court. The first and second assignments relate to instructions granted and refused by the trial judge. The third assignment relates to the refusal of the trial judge to grant a peremptory instruction as to the defendant's legal liability requested by the plaintiff. It is therefore necessary that we give a brief summary of the testimony.
The plaintiff, E. T. Scoggins, testified that he entered the hospital on January 20, 1954, and that the operation on his left eye was performed by Dr. Jones on January 21. The plaintiff was taken from the operating room to a room on the fourth floor of the hospital, and was told to lie flat on his back for twenty-four hours. The stitches were removed on January 23 or 24, and after that he was able to sit up a little on the side of the bed. His wife stayed in the hospital room with him day and night, except during short intervals, when she would go to town. When the stitches were removed, he could see light. On the fourth day he was told that he could walk to the bathroom; but his eyes were still bandaged. On Wednesday morning, January 27, Dr. Jones came and changed the bandages on his eye, and told his wife that he could go home. Mrs. Scoggins then left the hospital and drove to her home in Issaquena County to prepare the house for the plaintiff's return. While she was away from the hospital and the plaintiff was lying on his bed practically asleep, sometime after the noon hour, a newsboy came to the door of the hospital room, and struck the plaintiff on the leg with a newspaper, and hollered 'Var'. The plaintiff was startled from his sleep by the newsboy's intrusion, and jumped out of his bed and called for the nurse. Mrs. Walter Little, the nurse on duty at that time, ran to his room immediately, and as she entered the room exclaimed, 'O, my God! why, Mr. Scoggins, what happened?' The plaintiff stated that he told Mrs. Little what had happened, and she then led him back to his bed. Dr. Jones came the next morning to dress the eye, and when the bandages were removed, the plaintiff found out that he could not see anything--could not distinguish light from darkness. Thereafter the doctor gave him typhoid shots for chills and fever, and he remained in the hospital until sometime in February. His eye was still bandaged when he left the hospital and returned to his home. The plaintiff stated that he came back to the hospital about a year later and had another operation performed on the left eye, and as a result of that operation got back a little eyesight. On cross-examination the plaintiff admitted that his wife had been in the habit of reading the newspapers to him while he was in the hospital, and that he had had other visotors.
Dr. Edley H. Jones testified that he had performed cataract operations on both of Mr. Scoggins' eyes. The operation on the right eye was performed sometime during the year 1953. The operation was not a success, and two other operations were performed on that eye. The operation on the left eye was performed on January 21, 1954. The patient's condition appeared to be satisfactory for a period of several days, and when the doctor dressed his eye during the morning of January 27 he could see fairly well. The doctor came back to see him in the afternoon, and asked him how he was feeling. He said he was feeling fine. Mrs. Scoggins, who had returned from her visit to the country, then said to her husband, 'Yes, but tell him what happened.' The doctor stated that Mr. Scoggins then told him that he was lying on the bed dozing, and a newsboy came in and touched or hit him on the bare foot and said 'paper', and he was so startled that he jumped clean out of bed. The doctor stated that he did not remove the bandage and look at the patient's eye at that time; but he came back the next morning and removed the bandage and examined the eye. The eye did not look the least bit disturbed; but while he was dressing the eye, Mr. Scoggins put his hand over the eye, and then said, 'Hell, doctor, I can't see.' The doctor stated that he was greatly disturbed when Mr. Scoggins said he could not see, and he came back to the hospital that night and removed the bandage, and examined the eye with an ophthalmoscope. The doctor stated the result of that examination as follows: 'When I looked into his eye that night, I didn't get any reflection of light, although I didn't see any blood; but the only thing I could conclude that had happened was, that he had had a hemorrhage in the back part of the eyeball.'
The doctor stated that the clot that he was talking about could have occurred as a result of the patient jumping out of bed. He was pressed by the appellant's attorney for an answer to the question, whether it was probable that the incident referred to above 'caused this blood clot in his eye.' His answer was, 'You are putting me on the spot there, * * * such a thing could have caused it.' The court interrupted the examination, and said, 'What could be possible is not sufficient in law.' The doctor was then asked whether it was 'probable'. His answer was, 'Yes, it is probable.' The doctor stated that, after making the ophthalmoscopic examination, he concluded that the patient had an intraocular hemorrhage; and after discussing the case with Dr. Allen, professor of ophthalmology at Tulane University, he decided to administer typhoid shots intravenously over a period of several days. The patient was given ten injections. The eye looked good at times after that, but the patient was not able to see out of the eye. The doctor stated that no one could know what happened inside the eye. He said, 'I presumed it had some blood there and he couldn't see, and in the course of time and as a result of that treatment, it should improve.' But the vision did not return to the eye until the patient was operated on again in March 1955.
On cross-examination, the doctor stated that chronic simple glaucoma was the greatest cause of blindness, and that condition could arise without trauma; that trauma is not the most common cause of glaucoma, the cause of glaucoma is not known; that gagging and nausea and vomiting could cause a hemorrhage in the eyeball; that he had known of cases where people lying in bed had developed a hemorrhage in the eye. The doctor repeated his statement that he presumed that the patient had suffered an intraocular hemorrhage; but he could actually see no blood. He then said:
Mrs. E. T. Scoggins testified that sh...
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