Stottlemire v. Cawood
| Decision Date | 29 January 1963 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 1356-58. |
| Citation | 213 F. Supp. 897 |
| Parties | Lloyd STOTTLEMIRE, Plaintiff, v. James C. CAWOOD and Parke Davis Company, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
John L. Laskey, Washington, D. C., and John A. Bradshaw, Detroit, Mich., for defendant Parke Davis Co.
This is an action to recover damages for negligence and wrongful death of a child brought against a physician and a manufacturer of drugs.
The salient facts are very simple. The deceased was a four year old child, who apparently had been sickly, suffering from a number of ailments for possibly a couple of years or more. After having been treated by a number of physicians in the course of her several ailments she was brought to Dr. James C. Cawood, one of the defendants in this action. He found that she was suffering from a sore throat and prescribed what is popularly known as a sulpha drug. Nothing more need be said about this feature of the case because it is not involved in the issues to be determined. About ten days later the child was brought to him again and he found that she was suffering from an ear infection. He prescribed an antibiotic known as chloromycetin. This was on June 14, 1957. The child continued in a course of illness, was eventually taken to Prince Georges County Hospital, and on September 26, 1957, the child died. The cause of death, according to some of the testimony at least, or the probable cause of death was aplastic anemia brought about as a result of deficiency of the bone marrow, which in turn was caused by the drug chloromycetin.
The crux of the case, however, is whether the doctor was guilty of any negligence or improper practice in prescribing chloromycetin. This question brings us to some of the fundamental principles governing the liability of physicians and surgeons to their patients. A physician or surgeon is required by law to exercise that degree of care and skill ordinarily exercised by the profession in the same line of practice in his own or similar locality. Failure to use such care and skill constitutes negligence. On the other hand, a physician or surgeon is not an insurer of health. He is not required to guarantee results. If he were, very few persons would venture to enter the medical profession. He undertakes only for the standard of skill possessed generally by others practicing in his field and for the care that they would give in similar circumstances. He must have latitude for exercise of reasonable judgment. He is not liable for an error of judgment unless the error is obvious or gross according to the prevailing practice of his profession.1
No inference of negligence may be drawn merely from the result of the physician's or surgeon's treatment. The burden of proof, as in all other cases, is on the plaintiff to establish by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was negligent, namely, that he departed from the standards just stated and was unskillful or negligent and that his want of skill or care caused injury to the patient.
What, then, is the evidence in this case on the crucial issue? The one and only expert witness on this issue was Dr. Charles Rath, who was called by the plaintiff. Dr. Rath testified that it was customary to use chloromycetin to combat a wide...
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Certified Questions From U.S. Dist. Court For Eastern Dist. of Mich., Southern Div., In re, Docket Nos. 68958
...1977); Yarrow v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 263 F.Supp. 159, 162-163 (D.SD., 1967), aff'd 408 F.2d 978 (CA 8, 1969); Stottlemire v. Cawood, 213 F.Supp. 897, 899 (D.DC.,1963); Seley v. G.D. Searle & Co., 67 Ohio St.2d 192, 202-203, 423 N.E.2d 831 (1981); Dyer v. Best Pharmacal, 118 Ariz. 465, 468-......
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Helene Curtis Industries, Inc. v. Pruitt
...to beauty shops, and incur liability only if a consumer were injured when the solutions were applied there. Cf. Stottlemire v. Cawood, D.C. 1963, 213 F.Supp. 897. Beyond that context they could not foresee any other use, unless it were determined that they could foresee the resale by the be......
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Odgers v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp.
...is a learned intermediary between the purchaser and the manufacturer."). 14 See cases cited supra note 12; see also Stottlemire v. Cawood, 213 F.Supp. 897 (D.D.C.1963); Magee v. Wyeth Laboratories, Inc., 214 Cal. App.2d 340; 29 Cal.Rptr. 322 (1963). 15 Skill v. Martinez, 91 F.R.D. 498 (D.N.......
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Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp. v. Chapman
...Inc., supra; Davis v. Wyeth Laboratories, Inc., supra; Sterling Drug, Inc. v. Cornish, (8th Cir. 1966) 370 F.2d 82; Stottlemire v. Cawood, (D.C.D.C.1963) 213 F.Supp. 897; Love v. Wolf, (1964) 226 Cal.App.2d 378, 38 Cal.Rptr. 183; Magee v. Wyeth Laboratories, (1963) 214 Cal.App.2d 340, 29 Ca......
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Chapter VI. Selected legal opinions of the secretariats of the United Nations<br />
and related intergovernmental organizations
...59, 61; 423 N.Y.S. 2d 95 (1979). ^Lindsay v. Ortko Pharmaceutical Corp., 637 P.2d 87, at 91 (2d Cir. 1980). 2*Stottlemire v. Cawood, 213 F. Supp. 897, 899 (D.C. Cir. 1963). See also the Incollingo v. Ewing case (282 A.2d 220), in which the Court, while upholding the principle that the suppl......