Truluck v. Municipal Hospital Bd. of City of Lakeland, 3930
| Decision Date | 08 April 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 3930,3930 |
| Parties | Lavonne TRULUCK, a minor, by and through his father and next friend, W. I. Truluck, and W. I. Truluck, individually, Appellants, v. The MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL BOARD OF the CITY OF LAKELAND, etc., et al., Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Clinton A. Curtis, of Woolfolk, Myers, Curtis & Newman, Lake Wales, for appellants.
M. Craig Massey, of Langston & Massey, Lakeland, for appellees.
The plaintiffs appeal a judgment entered on a directed verdict for defendants after declaration of mistrial following inability of the jury to reach a verdict in a personal injury case. The defendants cross assign error, contending that the trial court should have entered summary judgment on a previously interposed motion of the defendant.
The record shows that plaintiffs, father and minor son sued for damages allegedly arising from injury negligently inflicted upon the minor plaintiff while a patient in the defendant hospital. Plaintiffs alleged that the minor plaintiff was hospitalized while suffering from a degenerative bone disease which made his left leg particularly susceptible to fracture; that the defendant hospital had notice of this condition; that the leg was placed in traction to avoid movement or trauma; that at 9:00 in the forenoon of August 6, 1959 an employee of defendant hospital, in the course of her duty as nurse and while attempting to change the bed linen, pulled the sheets from under the minor plaintiff in such negligent manner as to cause his body to twist with resultant fracture of the left femur; that the fracture was discovered some time after 3:30 P.M. of the same day when, at the insistence of minor plaintiff's mother, a doctor made an examination and caused X rays to be taken.
The defendants denied negligence, alleged contributory negligence and counterclaimed for unpaid amounts due the hospital. Thereafter, submitting the deposition of the minor plaintiff, the defendants moved for summary judgment, which was denied. The case proceeded to trial, and the defendants moved for a directed verdict at the close of plaintiffs' case and at the close of all the evidence. The court reserved rulings and the case was submitted to the jury which, after deliberation, announced a hopeless deadlock. Thereupon the court declared a mistrial. The defendants then renewed their motion for directed verdict which was granted. New trial was denied, and the latter two actions of the court are assigned as error on this appeal by the plaintiffs. The defendants...
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