Silver v. Redleaf

• Decision Date: 28 January 1972
• Docket Number: No. 42975,42975
• Citation: 292 Minn. 463,194 N.W.2d 271
• Parties: Mary SILVER, as trustee for the heirs of Solomon L. Silver, Decedent, Appellant, v. Dr. Paul D. REDLEAF, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 271

194 N.W.2d 271

292 Minn. 463

Mary SILVER, as trustee for the heirs of Solomon L. Silver Decedent, Appellant, v. Dr. Paul D. REDLEAF, Respondent.

No. 42975.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Jan. 28, 1972.

Firestone, Fink, Krawetz, Miley & Maas, St. Paul, for appellant.

Cummins, Gislason, Sheahan, Joyce & McHaffie, St. Paul, for respondent.

Heard before KNUTSON, C.J., and MURPHY, OTIS, and PETERSON, JJ. Case considered and decided by the court en banc except as to Mr. Justice OTIS, who withdrew after oral argument.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

This is an action for wrongful death by medical malpractice instituted by plaintiff, Mary Silver, against defendant, Paul D. Redleaf, the attending physician for her deceased husband, Solomon I. Silver. A verdict for defendant was directed because plaintiff had failed to prove defendant's causal negligence with competent medical testimony. This appeal is from the trial court's order denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial. We affirm.

Solomon I. Silver died at Miller Hospital on Wednesday, January 17, 1968. He had been a patient of defendant, Dr. Redleaf, since December 24, 1964, at which time he had been hospitalized for a heart ailment. He was hospitalized for subsequent heart episodes in 1965 and 1967, the latter hospitalization additionally involving emphysema and a neck pain related to old age. He had otherwise been in generally good health for a man of almost 74.

In the late afternoon of Monday, January 15, 1968, Dr. Redleaf attended decedent at the Silver home in response to decedent's complaint of severe abdominal pain that had commenced the prior day. Dr. Redleaf diagnosed his ailment as stomach flu or inflammation of the gall bladder, for which he prescribed medication. The following day, Tuesday, plaintiff telephoned Dr. Redleaf to report that decedent continued to have severe pain, and she thereafter called at approximately hourly intervals. Dr. Redleaf, however, expected that decedent would have stomach pain and thought the suspected symptoms corroborated his initial diagnosis. Plaintiff urged that Dr. Redleaf hospitalize decedent, but, perceiving no emergency to warrant it, the doctor declined to do so. However, he did make arrangement for a gall bladder check and outpatient X-rays to be made the next day. At 6 p.m. on Tuesday plaintiff called to report that decedent was passing considerable blood in his stool, but Dr. Redleaf, who was aware that decedent had previously had blood in his urine while under prior medication, attributed any presence of blood in the stool to straining during evacuation.

Late Tuesday, Dr. Redleaf called plaintiff's adult daughter, whose husband is a physician, to tell her that her parents were getting too excited and that her father was not seriously ill. Dr. Redleaf had received similar telephone calls of concern from plaintiff when decedent had previously been attended for neck pain. The daughter requested that her father be hospitalized simply for her mother's peace of mind, but there is no indication that the daughter conveyed any real sense of anxiety either to Dr. Redleaf or to her own physician-husband.

Early Wednesday morning, Dr. Redleaf stopped at the Silver home, but his examination still gave him no cause for alarm. After a subsequent call from plaintiff, he did arrange to have decedent admitted to Miller Hospital for preliminary tests. Dr. Redleaf went to the hospital shortly before noon and wrote an emergency admission note and order sheet detailing the tests which were to be made. Because it was his day off, Dr. Redleaf left his patient in his partner's charge. Decedent arrived at the hospital at about 1 p.m. on Wednesday, in extremis. He was agitated and incoherent, and no blood pressure or pulse was obtainable. Although the precise time of his death is disputed, it occurred within about 2 hours after decedent's arrival at the hospital.

Dr. Redleaf testified that hospitalization on Monday or Tuesday would not have averted death. Plaintiff, on the other hand, offered no medical testimony in support of her claim that Dr. Redleaf was causally negligent. Decedent's son-in-law, for reasons which are not disclosed on this record, did not testify.

We have repeatedly held that plaintiff, in order to prove negligence in a malpractice action, must offer expert medical testimony both to state the...