West Coast Hospital Ass'n v. Webb
| Decision Date | 22 May 1951 |
| Citation | 52 So.2d 803 |
| Parties | WEST COAST HOSPITAL ASS'N v. WEBB. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
McMullen, McMullen & Pogue, Clearwater, for appellant.
Barton & Saltsman, St. Petersburg, for appellee.
The appellee, during a diabetic coma complicated by pneumonia, was admitted to the Morton F. Plant Hospital, operated by appellant, and while she was unconscious suffered there many serious burns that resulted in permanent injury and necessitated the expenditure of much money.
Various pleas were filed to the three counts of the declaration, and upon the trial of the issues thus formed, the jury awarded the appellee a verdict of $12,000.
Nearly all of appellant's brief is devoted to the action of the trial court in dealing with the subject of res ipsa loquitur. It is insisted on its behalf that this doctrine was irrelevant because there was no direct evidence that heat was applied to appellee's body in the hospital, or, if applied, that it was done negligently, or that the negligent use of heat proximately caused the injury.
There is much testimony about the treatment administered to the appellee before she was removed from her home, but there was ample proof to justify a conclusion that her burns were not received before she reached the hospital and that they were got there while she was completely helpless and senseless.
The appellant directs us to our decisions in Foster v. Thornton, 125 Fla. 699, 170 So. 459, and Grubbs v. McShane, 144 Fla. 585, 198 So. 208, to support its position. In the first, construing an earlier opinion in the same litigation, it was said that the rule of res ipsa loquitur was inappropriate in an action against a physician for negligent treatment of a patient, that a physician's unskilfulness in diagnoses or negligence in treatment would not be inferred from the fact that the patient continued to suffer, or even died. In the second, also involving alleged carelessness of a physician in the treatment of disease, phlebitis, we confirmed what was said in Foster v. Thornton about the inapplicability of res ipsa loquitur.
But the instant action was not one against a doctor, bringing into question the proper exercise of his professional skill. The party charged with the responsibility for appellee's misfortune is an institution, doubtless supplied with all manner of contrivances designed to alleviate pain and cure disease when properly used by one fitted in that respect or under the direction of one so qualified.
Let us turn now to the testimony of the physician who held the responsible position of chief of staff of the appellant's hospital to see through his eyes what happened to Margaret Webb. He arranged for her admittance and examined her upon arrival but saw no burns upon her body. He treated her professionally and prepared a chart of his ministrations. He did not direct that heat be applied to the patient; he did not know what caused the burns; and he said that the attending nurse had no idea how the patient became injured. The court asked him: 'Could that burn have been caused by any of the treatment you had given or directed?' and he replied, 'No, Sir.' He did not know either, so he said, whether the burns resulted from heat,...
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