Steverson v. Hospital Authority of Ware County

• Decision Date: 20 June 1973
• Docket Number: No. 47982,2,3,Nos. 1,47982,s. 1
• Citation: 129 Ga.App. 510,199 S.E.2d 881
• Parties: J. W. STEVERSON et al. v. HOSPITAL AUTHORITY OF WARE COUNTY et al
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 881

199 S.E.2d 881

129 Ga.App. 510

J. W. STEVERSON et al. v. HOSPITAL AUTHORITY OF WARE COUNTY et al.

No. 47982.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division Nos. 1, 2, 3.

June 20, 1973.

Rehearing Denied July 30, 1973.

Jones, Kemp & Osteen, Charles M. Jones, Hinesville, Dawson, Galant, Maddox, Boyer & Sulik, Carl D. Dawson, Jacksonville, Fla., for appellants.

Bennet, Gilbert, Gilbert & Whittle, Wallace E. Harrell, Brunswick, Memory & Thomas, S. F. Memory, Jr., Waycross, for appellees.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court

CLARK, Judge.

Plaintiffs, a widower and his two minor sons, sued a hospital and doctor for the homicide of Mary Frances Steverson, the wife and mother of plaintiffs. After the jury returned a verdict for defendants, plaintiffs sought a new trial which was denied from which denial this appeal ensued.

Mrs. Steverson was a patient of defendant doctor. Two days after an office visit she was admitted to defendant hospital in a condition of advanced pregnancy where her condition was such that she was promptly taken to the delivery room before her doctor could be contacted and delivery took place with the assistance of an extern, this being the name applied to student doctors who serve a portion of their last year in hospitals. About two hours after giving birth the patient began bleeding profusely, this being described as an abnormal development. Various treatments and medications were administered but about 11:30 p.m. she went into shock from loss of blood. Defendant doctor ordered two units of blood cross-matched which was supplied by defendant hospital. Plaintiffs assert various acts of negligence but principally that the administered blood was erroneously mismatched with the result that her death occurred. Defendants denied any negligence.

1. Appellants earnestly argue the general grounds, the enumeration of error contending that the evidence concerning the mismatching of blood 'stood before the jury unrebutted and unchallenged.' We have reviewed the three volumes constituting the transcript of the trial, including the numerous exhibits introduced by both parties. We find that there is a conflict in evidence which was properly submitted to the jury for determination. Although there were in the physician's office file two reports from the Georgia Department of Public Health (T. 370, 371) indicating the blood type of deceased to have been O Positive there is also evidence indicating that deceased did not have type O Positive blood but actually had type AB Positive blood.

Twelve documents from the hospital's blood bank records (T. 355-A, 356, 357) state the patient's type to be AB Positive. Although the Georgia Department of Public Health records came from the office files of defendant doctor they contained a printed caveat: 'Results insufficient for adequate pre-transfusion testing.' The jury apparently accepted the hospital's work in matching blood to be more reliable and superior to that done by the state laboratory. 'In passing on the general grounds of a motion for new trial, this court passes not on the weight but on the sufficiency of the evidence. It is our duty to determine whether the verdict as rendered can be sustained under any reasonable view taken of the proofs submitted to the jury . . . It was the province of the jury, and theirs alone, to put their appraisal upon the proofs submitted to them.' Ingram v. State, 204 Ga. 164, 184, 48 S.E.2d 891, 902. 'Where the trial judge approves the verdict the sole question for determination by this court is whether there is any evidence sufficient to authorize it.' Adler v. Adler, 207 Ga. 394, 405, 61 S.E.2d 824, 832.

Similarly the evidence was conflicting on such issues of fact as to the cause of patient's excessive bleeding and her death, whether there was undue delay on the part of the doctor and hospital personnel, and if timely and proper medications and transfusions were given. The jury's verdict represented their decision on such conflicts favorably to defendants including in effect their acceptance of the defense contention that there was no blood incompatibility. A review of the transcript discloses sufficient evidence to authorize the verdicts rendered by the jury. Thus the denial of the motion for new trial based on the general grounds was not error. See Neloms v. Carmichael, 125 Ga.App. 331(1), 187 S.E.2d 555.

2. The second enumeration of error contends the trial court should not have permitted the defendant doctor to testify under objection to the following question posed by counsel for the defendant hospital: 'Based on the hospital records and your personal knowledge of this case, what is your opinion as to whether or not the nurses and hospital personnel exercised such reasonable degree of care and skill as is ordinarily employed by hospitals in the area of Waycross in connection with the actual delivery and the subsequent care of the patient, Mrs. Steverson? . . .' (T. 143, 144, 145).

Quoting verbatim, this assignment of error reads: 'As stated at the trial the objection was timely interposed on the ground that the question '. . . calls for a conclusion of fact . . . which would be for the jury. The degree of care exercised is a question particularly and peculiarly and exclusively for the jury. . . .' (T. 143), that 'The doctor is permitted . . . to testify as to what the accepted and approved practices and procedures are. He is not permitted to testify that these procedures and practices done by the hospital meet the standard tests. He can tell what they are and what the procedures are. Whether or not they met a standard, that is purely a question for the jury to decide, Your Honor.' (T. 143); and that 'Your Honor, it calls for a conclusion on legal standards. They are legal standards required by law, and the only people who can make that conclusion would be the jury.' (T. 143-144).'

This enumeration of error is thus addressed solely to whether the question and answer invaded the province of the jury. In short, is a doctor as an expert permitted to testify concerning the degree of care and skill exercised by nurses and hospitals?

In Summerour v. Lee, 104 Ga.App. 73(2), 121 S.E.2d 80, Wilson v. Kornegay, 108 Ga.App. 318, 320, 132 S.E.2d 791, and Shea v. Phillips, 213 Ga. 269(2), 98 S.E.2d 552, we find the following statement: 'It is the general rule in this jurisdiction that laymen, even jurors and courts, are not permitted to say what is proper medical and surgical treatment; for that is a medical question.'

In Pilgrim v. Landham, 63 Ga.App. 451, 454, 11 S.E.2d 420, 423, this court said: 'What is the proper method of diagnosing a case is a medical question to be testified to by physicians as expert witnesses. Laymen, even jurors and courts, are not permitted to say what is the proper method of diagnosing a case for discovering the nature of an ailment . . . And where measured by the method shown by medical witnesses to be negligence the evidence shows a bad result, it is the province of the jury to say whether the result was caused by the negligence. However, the court and the jury must have a standard measure which they are to use in measuring the acts of the doctor in determining whether he exercised a reasonable degree of care and skill. They are not permitted to set up and use any arbitrary or artificial standard of measurement that a jury may wish to apply. The proper standard of measurement is to be established by testimony of physicians for it is a medical question.'

In Wilson v. Kornegay, 108 Ga.App. 318, 132 S.E.2d 791, p. 793, supra, p. 321, first paragraph, it at least implied that a physician would be permitted to actually testify that, 'the defendant was guilty of malpractice.'

The case of Fincher v. Davis, 27 Ga.App. 494(4), 108 S.E. 905 appears to be directly in point and controlling in this case. In the cited case, the physician-witness for the plaintiff was asked, 'Was this operation done in a skilful manner?', and answered affirmatively. The same type of objection was made to the question as was made in this case, namely that the question and answer 'trenched upon the province of the jury in seeking and eliciting a conclusion upon the main issue in the case. . . .' It was held that such opinion of an expert is always admissible when given in response to a hypothetical question based upon the expert's own observation of the facts. See also Howell v. Jackson, 65 Ga.App. 422, 423, 16 S.E.2d 45, 46, where this court said: 'Jurors and courts do not know and are not permitted arbitrarily to say what are the proper methods of treating an ailment. This is a medical question. Hence, the general rule is that medical testimony must be introduced to inform the jurors that is a proper method of treating the particular case.'

We might also add that the trial court charged the jury on the effect of expert evidence and told the jury that it might 'accept it and act on it or reject it and then act on their own judgment as applied to the evidence in the case.' (T. 328).

We can not perceive of any good reason why the rule applicable in malpractice cases against physicians should not apply equally to the present action brought against the hospital in which technical questions were involved and on which the physician has been first qualified as an expert.

We observe specifically that the objection to the question did not include any reference to whether or not local area or national standards should be applied to the hospital. The trial court thus was not called upon to pass on this point. In fact, the transacript at page 145 shows that when counsel proceeded along the lines of limiting the scope to hospitals in the Waycross area there was no objection stated: 'A. Oh yes, I can testify that in my opinion the hospital personnel exercised a reasonable degree of care in this case. Yes, Sir. Q. Such as would be exercised by other hospitals in this area? A. Yes, Sir.' (T. 145). A ground of objection to testimony...