Sylvester v. Northwestern Hospital of Minneapolis, 35691

• Court: Supreme Court of Minnesota (US)
• Writing for the Court: MATSON
• Citation: 236 Minn. 384,53 N.W.2d 17
• Parties: SYLVESTER v. NORTHWESTERN HOSPITAL OF MINNEAPOLIS.
• Docket Number: No. 35691,35691
• Decision Date: 18 April 1952

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53 N.W.2d 17 236 Minn. 384 SYLVESTER
v.
NORTHWESTERN HOSPITAL OF MINNEAPOLIS. No. 35691. Supreme Court of Minnesota. April 18, 1952.

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Syllabus by the Court.

[236 MINN 384] 1. A private hospital, although it is not an insurer of the safety of a patient, must exercise such reasonable care for the protection and well-being of a patient as his known physical and mental condition requires or as is required by his condition as it ought to be known to the hospital in the exercise of ordinary care.

2. One who is required by law to take or who voluntarily takes the custody of another under circumstances such as to deprive the other of his normal power of self-protection or to subject him to associations with persons likely to harm him, is under a duty of exercising reasonable care so to control the conduct of third persons as to prevent them from intentionally harming the other or so conducting themselves as to create an unreasonable risk of harm to him, if the actor

(a) knows or has reason to know that he has the ability to control the conduct of the third persons, and

(b) knows or should know of the necessity and opportunity for exercising such control.

3. Where defendant hospital knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care ought to have known, that one of its patients was so intoxicated as to stagger when walking, it ought reasonably to have anticipated--although it had no actual knowledge that such patient was possessed of vicious or aggressive tendencies when drunk--that to permit him to wander about the hospital unguarded was likely to result in injury to other patients, and it is liable for any injury which proximately resulted from his intoxicated condition, although it could not have anticipated the particular injury which did happen.

[236 MINN 385] Hall, Smith & Hedlund, Minneapolis, for appellant.

Durham & Swanson, Minneapolis, for respondent.

MATSON, Justice.

Appeal from an order denying plaintiff's motion to vacate a directed verdict and for a new trial.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff as a result of defendant hospital's negligence in failing to protect plaintiff from injuries caused by the violence of another patient who was intoxicated.

Taking, as we must, the view of the evidence most favorable to plaintiff, it appears that plaintiff was admitted to defendant hospital on December 13, 1948, for an appendectomy. After the operation he was placed in a six-bed ward to convalesce. On December 21, the stitches were removed in anticipation of his release from the hospital the next day. On the evening of that day, another patient, Red Hanson--hereinafter called Red--came into plaintiff's ward in such an intoxicated condition that he was staggering back and forth. Red threw himself onto plaintiff's bed and in so doing pushed it until it was almost against the next bed. After pulling the sheets off plaintiff, Red grabbed plaintiff's fingers and twisted them so as to cause pain. When plaintiff protested, Red became angry and took off his nightgown, which he rolled into a ball and threw at another patient. After 20 to 30 minutes of such disturbance, plaintiff asked Red to leave the room. Red said that he would if plaintiff would help him to put on his bathrobe. While plaintiff was assisting him, Red suddenly struck plaintiff in the [236 MINN 386] abdomen adjacent to the appendectomy incision. As a result of the blow, plaintiff suffered considerable pain

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and injury, for which he seeks by this action to recover damages from defendant hospital on the theory that it was negligent in permitting Red to move about the hospital in an intoxicated condition, thereby endangering plaintiff's safety. At the close of plaintiff's evidence, the trial court granted defendant's motion for a directed verdict.

The evidence indicates that on other occasions Red had staggered into plaintiff's ward in a drunken condition. It further appears that in order to reach plaintiff's ward Red had to walk the full length of the hospital. In short, there was evidence from which a jury could reasonably find that defendant hospital knew, or ought to have known, that Red, as one of its patients, was wandering about the hospital in an intoxicated condition; but there is no satisfactory evidence that it actually knew that, when intoxicated, he was possessed of vicious tendencies.

1. A private hospital, although it is not an insurer of the safety of a patient, must exercise such reasonable care for the protection and well-being of a patient as his known physical and mental condition requires or as is required by his condition as it ought to be known to the hospital in the exercise of ordinary care. ¹ As to the danger of self-injury ² or as to the danger reasonably to be anticipated...