Styles v. Tyler

• Decision Date: 09 July 1894
• Citation: 30 A. 165,64 Conn. 432
• Parties: STYLES v. TYLER.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

30 A. 165

64 Conn. 432

STYLES

v. TYLER.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 9, 1894.

Appeal from court of common pleas, Hartford county; Calhoun, Judge.

Action by Elmer L. Styles against George P. Tyler for services rendered as physician. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

The following "reasons for decision" were signed and filed by the trial judge: "On the 21st day of April, 1891, the plaintiff was employed by defendant to treat, as a surgeon, a. fracture of the femur of the left leg of the defendant's boy, then a little over two years of age. The implied promise of the plaintiff upon this employment was to treat said case with ordinary and reasonable skill and care. He has brought his action on the common counts, and to recover must show affirmatively that he fulfilled his own agreement aforesaid, and thus rendered his services as a surgeon for the defendant of value. On the trial it was not questioned that on May 21st the boy's thigh bone was so bent as to require a further surgical operation to reduce it to its proper line. This was done by Dr. Sweet, who charged for his services $35. If the plaintiff left the bone in the condition above mentioned, it is admitted that he did not use reasonable and ordinary care and skill in the case; but he claims to have done so, and that the condition of the boy's femur must have been caused by some serious injury after his own duty had been properly done. To accept this theory without any direct proof, and in the face of the testimony of the defendant and his wife as to the care with which the boy was preserved from any accident, would require extraordinary confidence in the statements and surgical skill of Drs. Styles and Bunnell. But when five witnesses have testified that this bend in the Done (or leg) was noticed by them presently on the removal of the splints, and their descriptions of it substantially coincide with that of Dr. Sweet, I must conclude that it was not the result of any injury received by the boy after he was discharged by the plaintiff. Another important question is, when was the boy taken to the plaintiff's office,—the 15th or the 21st of May? If on May 21st, the plaintiff's claim of subsequent injury cannot stand, for both he and Dr. Bunuell declare there had been no change in the position of the bone from May 12th, when the splints were removed, to the date of the office inspection. And the testimony which fixes the date of that inspection as May 21st (the day the boy was taken to Hartford) decidedly overbalances that of the plaintiff and Dr. Bunnell, which names May 15th. True, the plaintiff associates that inspection with another surgical operation, which was performed on the 15th. But there is nothing but memory to verify the association, and the plaintiff may, and quite honestly, be mistaken. Dr. Bunnell gave no special reason which I recall for remembering the date. The parents, in a matter so important to them, could hardly err in their recollection. They ought to know better than any other persons whether they took their child to Hartford the same day he was in the plaintiff's office. They say they did and in this statement the grandfather and Mrs. Atkinson corroborate them. And, if this is so, then the opinions of even so competent and candid an expert as Dr. Cook must yield to proved facts. And it is still more improbable, and, I might say, almost impossible, that the boy received any subsequent injury, and I must decide that the plaintiff has failed to support his claim for compensation for his services, having failed to perform his promise in the case of the defendant's child. I design to cast no further imputation on the ability of the plaintiff as a surgeon than my decision in this case implies. I suppose that skillful surgeons may err in judgment or care. I must reject the counterclaim of the defendant, for there is no evidence that he has suffered any damage or been put to extra expense by the plaintiff's failure to perforin his contract, and, if he has, there are no data from which the court can determine the amount"

The judge also made the following finding of facts: "(1) On the 21st of April, 1891, the plaintiff was employed as a professional surgeon by the defendant to reduce a fracture of the left femur of the defendant's boy, than a little over two years of age. (2) On said day the plaintiff accepted said services, and commenced, as surgeon, to treat said fracture, and continued so to do until May 12, 1891, when he voluntarily ceased to attend the boy for the purpose aforesaid. (3) The plaintiff treated said fracture with such lack of ordinary care and skill that he left said femur unnaturally bent. (4) The de fendant was consequently compelled to employ another surgeon to reset said bone, and to place it in its proper condition. (5) The services of the plaintiff above mentioned, and for which this suit was brought were of no value to the defendant. (6) On the trial no question of law was ruled adversely to the plaintiff."

William F. Henney, for appellant.

Charles H. Briscoe, for appellee.

HAMERSLEY, J. This is an action brought by a practicing physician and surgeon to recover of the defendant the price of professional services rendered. The defendant answers by a general denial, and also sets up special defenses, of which only one affects the questions before us, and that one alleges that the plaintiff was a practicing physician and surgeon, and as such undertook to reduce a fracture of the thigh bone of the defendant's infant child, and performed the operation negligently and without reasonable skill; and that by reason of the plaintiff's negligence and lack of reasonable skill his services were of no value to the defendant. The court below rendered judgment for the defendant. The plaintiff appealed.

The finding of facts states that the plaintiff treated the fracture with such lack of ordinary care and skill that he left the bone unnaturally bent, and that the services of the plaintiff were of no value to the defendant. Upon such finding there is clearly no error.

There is printed with the record the "reasons for decision," signed and filed by the trial judge when judgment was rendered. It appears from these reasons that the court did not find any specific negligence or lack of skill on the part of the plaintiff, but inferred error in judgment or care amounting to lack of reasonable and ordinary care and skill from the fact that, after the operation was completed, and the splints removed, the bone was so bent as to require a further surgical operation, which was done by another physician; that the splints were removed May 12th, and the bent condition of the bone was not certainly ascertained until May 21st; that the plaintiff claimed to have left the bone in good condition on May 12th, and that any bending discovered on May 21st must have resulted from some intervening accident, and was in no way attributable to the plaintiff, while the defendant claimed that the leg appeared to be bent on May 12th; that the court held as a rule of law that the burden of proof was on the plaintiff to show affirmatively that he treated the case with ordinary and reasonable skill and care, and that the court applied this rule as to burden of proof in determining the preponderance of evidence as to the main fact of the plaintiff's lack of care and skill, including the subordinate fact of the appearance of the leg on May 12th. This statement of reasons, although printed with the record, in pursuance of a rule of this court, is not strictly a part of the record. It is, however, the official opinion of the court below, and as such belongs to the case. It may properly be used by counsel as a basis for his statement of the questions of law he desires to raise upon appeal. When a judgment is rendered, the trial judge is not bound to state, either orally or in writing, the reasons for his decision; but when he sees fit, in announcing his decision, to give such reasons, and states the facts as he finds them, and the conclusions of law he draws from the facts, or the rules of law he has applied in determining the facts, we think counsel are justly entitled to claim error in the law so announced, and to have a finding containing the facts in sufficient detail to clearly present such claim upon the record. And the difficulty of applying an effective remedy when a trial judge refuses to make a proper finding in such case is doubtless one reason that induced the enactment of the recent statute, Pub. Acts 1893, p. 318, upon the construction of which this case depends.¹ The record, in addition to the plaintiff's request for a finding under the provisions of Gen. St. § 1132, with the statement of the questions of law arising thereon which he wishes to have reviewed, contains the plaintiff's request to the judge to incorporate in the finding the facts he claims to be proven by the evidence, including the facts found in the judge's reasons for decision; the plaintiff's exceptions to the finding of facts by the court, and to the refusal of the court to find the facts requested; and all the evidence claimed by either party to be material to such questions of fact, and found by the court to have been actually given in the case. In his appeal the plaintiff assigns, as reasons for appeal, the alleged error of the court before stated as to the rule of burden of proof, and adds certain reasons for appeal on questions of fact The plaintiff claims judgment in his favor because the conclusions of the court below upon the pure issues of fact are clearly against the weight of evidence, and also because the court in reaching its conclusions of fact, adopted an erroneous rule as to the burden of proof. Both claims are made under the act of 1893, and the record is made up in pursuance of that act. The first claim involves the question, does the act require this court to determine, upon the evidence spread upon the record,...