Von Eye v. Hammes

• Decision Date: 10 August 1956
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 2841.
• Citation: Von Eye v. Hammes, 147 F.Supp. 174 (D. Minn. 1956)
• Parties: Evelyn VON EYE, Plaintiff, v. Dr. E. M. HAMMES, Sr., et al. (Mounds Park Hospital), Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

147 F. Supp. 174

Evelyn VON EYE, Plaintiff, v.Dr. E. M. HAMMES, Sr., et al. (Mounds Park Hospital), Defendants.

Civ. No. 2841.

United States District Court D. Minnesota, Third Division.

August 10, 1956.

Lawrence O. Larson, Minneapolis, Minn., for plaintiff.

Richard, Janes, Hoke, Montgomery & Cobb, Bergmann Richards and Melvin D. Heckt, Minneapolis, Minn., Alfred R. Sundberg, St. Paul, Minn., for Mounds Park Hospital.

DONOVAN, District Judge.

This tort action to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by and resulting in disability to plaintiff is now before the Court on alternative motion by defendant Mounds Park Hospital for judgment notwithstanding the verdict returned for plaintiff in the sum of $39,380, or for a new trial.

Seeking to vacate the judgment, defendant contends:

1.The verdict and the judgment entered thereon are contrary to the evidence;

2.The judgment is contrary to law 3.The trial court erred in certain rulings and instructions.

A verdict was directed by the Court on motion therefor by the defendant doctors.The defendant Mounds Park Hospital was the only remaining defendant, and for convenience the present parties to the instant case will be referred to as plaintiff and defendant.

Discussion of defendant's points made in support of the alternative motion will be in the order above set forth.

1.Is the verdict and judgment contrary to the evidence?

Defendant, urging this point, thereby challenges the weight and sufficiency of the evidence as a basis for the verdict; hence a summarizing of the facts is in order.

At the time it was determined that a neurological examination and diagnosis of plaintiff by competent neurologists was indicated, plaintiff resided with her husband and their three children (five, four and two years of age at trial) on a farm at Miller, South Dakota.She described her condition before hospitalization in this manner:

"I would get depressions.I would cry.* * * I would wander around, not knowing much what I was doing.* * * I had no perspective. * * *. I felt like killing myself.* * * I took the kids away in the truck.I had blackouts.* * * I didn't have them adequately dressed.* * * Well, it was chilly weather, * * *.I put them in the truck and drove for miles.* * * They were crying terrible."

Plaintiff's sister, Frances Rydel, was a registered nurse employed part time at defendant's hospital, in the City of St. Paul, Minnesota.It was decided that plaintiff, accompanied by her mother, would journey to St. Paul to seek her sister's advice.The sister arranged for plaintiff to meet Dr. Hammes, Sr., at defendant's hospital.A history and examination was made by defendant doctors who were specialists in "nervous and mental diseases", on October 12, 1954, and she was assigned (quoting the testimony of Dr. Hammes, Sr.):

"to a room in the open ward where we have nervous and mental patients.* * * There is a closed ward where the very disturbed patients are kept.* * * That is what we might call the exclusively psychiatric ward.* * * Sheplaintiff had the same kind of a room that every patient had on the second floor where the window is barred.* * * I gave orders as to what privileges plaintiff might have after I reviewed the history * * * and after I had examined her.

* * * * * *

"My diagnosis was a schizophrenia with paranoid tendencies * * *.A schizophrenia is a mental disorder occurring more frequently in young people, which is commonly known to the laity as a split personality.Those patients frequently develop delusions, hallucinations of sight and hearing, and if they manifest persecutory ideas, like this patient had, we call them schizophrenia with paranoid tendencies.Sometimes these patients go into what we call a catatonic stupor, so that they lie in bed and have their eyes closed and are resistive and have to be tube fed and sometimes water has to be drawn, which is just one phase of the schizophrenia.

* * * * * *

"And on the 5th of November I ordered the electric shock treatment — that was the only one that she had — and I said if patient is willing to take it; and also ordered her to sit in the sun parlor an hour in the forenoon and the afternoon because she felt her restrictions, and I thought it would help her to have a little more activity by walking out into the sun parlor and sitting there and visiting with other patients.And an order like that did not mean that she needed a nurse.She could go out there alone.

* * * * * *

"Deciding whether a patient should go in an open ward or a closed ward, regardless of the type of mental illness they have, depends entirely upon the character of the sick ideas that they have, any manifestation of suicidal tendencies, danger to harm themselves, or disturbances, so that it disturbs other patients, in the other rooms, and reactions of that type.If a schizophrenic has those tendencies, or shows disturbed states, or has to be fed with a tube because they will not eat, those people should be placed in the closed ward.But the average cooperative patient who controls himself well, in my opinion they are safe in the open ward.

* * * * * *

"Q.Why did you not order this plaintiff put in restraints?A.Because there was no need of it.

"Q.And will you give us why you came to that conclusion?A.She — neither in her history as given by her and by her sister was there any evidence of any tendencies that she might harm herself or might harm others.From the day that she came into the hospital she was a cooperative patient.She did what we asked her to do.She had these distressing ideas, which at times dominated her, but never to the point where we felt that there was any danger that she might either harm herself or harm anybody else.

* * * * * *

"Q.So far as you now know from all sources, were all of the orders of you attending physicians, the three of you, carried out by the hospital?A.As far as I know, all the orders that were written by my son and by Dr. Norman and myself were carried out".¹

The attending physician testified that it was up to the nurses to see that plaintiff did not leave her room.²On October 22, 1954, her attending physician testified plaintiff"seemed suspicious.Wants door closed tightly because some one might be listening outside.* * * Deep insulin shock" was prescribed on October 29th and on November 1st the attending physician ordered "no insulin until further orders."By November 5th she appeared hostile.³On November5th Dr. Hammes, Sr., ordered "an electric shock treatment in the morning if patient is willing to take them.* * * May sit in sun parlor one hour in the forenoon and in the afternoon * * * and they usually are allowed to go to the bath room."

Dr. Hammes, Sr., and his associates, Dr. Hammes, Jr., and Dr. Norman conferred and discussed plaintiff's case.As part of the standard treatment nurse Frances Rydel was requested not to attend plaintiff on account of her being plaintiff's sister, and in that respect quotes the attending physician as saying:

"We are going to move her as soon as we can possibly get another room on first floor, because we don't like this set-up of having you on the same floor with her.* * * I want you to leave her alone as much as possible.* * * Your sister is a very sick girl."

Plaintiff's sister testified further that she saw her sister around midnight prior to going off duty on November 8th (the date plaintiff jumped out of a window and sustained the injuries herein sued for), and that plaintiff:

"* * * appeared quite upset, but she was quiet.* * * She said there was a parked car outside the window with two men in it and they were watching her.* * * There was no parked car outside the window.* * * I noted that on the chart.ExhibitNo. 1.* * * I called Dr. Hammes, Jr., around 4 o'clock in the morning, November 8, 1954 and told him that she hadn't slept all night. * * * she was upset and restless.* * * He said to give her sodium luminal * * *."

Plaintiff's witness Lorraine Glewwe, a patient in defendant's maternity ward on November 8, 1954, describes the events leading to the leap from the window as follows:

"I was sitting in my room, in my bed, reading a book, and I looked up and Mrs. Von Eye was standing at the foot of my bed.And she asked me if I had had a baby, and I told her yes.And she asked me if it was a boy or a girl.And I told her it was a girl but that it had died.And she said that was too bad.And she said — then at that time there were voices in the hall; whether they were the nurses coming from upstairs going downstairs, or whether it was the nurses checking the lights, I do not know.And she went behind the door.She stood behind my door.She started to close it first, and I told her, no, she couldn't close it because they wanted my door half open at all times.She then stood behind the door, and I asked her — and she turned around and went `shh'.And I asked her why.And she said she had to get out of there, they were trying to hold her there.And then she put a chair under the door, closed the door and put a chair under the door, and went out the window."

There is no dispute about defendant being "a general hospital taking care of medical, surgical, obstetrical, mental and nervous patients * * *."

What the attending physicians did may be summarized by Dr. Hammes, Sr., who on direct examination testified as follows:

"I saw her first on the morning of October 18, 1954, at which time I reviewed the history that she had given to Dr. Norman.I made a physical examination, an examination of her nervous system and examination of her mental status.At that time I made a note saying that the patient is `depressed, agitated, paranoid.'And by `paranoid' it means that they have sick ideas of a persecutory nature.That was on the first day that I examined her.

* * * * * *

"But on the 22nd when I saw her again — I usually saw her Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; and the 22nd, I take it, was on Friday

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