Title: Groover v. Riddle Memorial Hosp.

State: pennsylvania

Issuer: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Document:

357 Pa. Superior Ct. 420 (1986) 516 A.2d 53 Mary Ann GROOVER and August T. Groover, Appellants, v. RIDDLE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL and Dr. Robert C. Lecher, Appellees. Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Argued May 15, 1986. Filed October 9, 1986. *421 Joseph McFadden, Media, for appellants. Malcolm L. Lazin, Philadelphia, for appellees. Before CAVANAUGH, WICKERSHAM and ROBERTS, JJ. *422 CAVANAUGH, Judge: Mary Ann Groover and her husband, August T. Groover, appeal from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County entered on September 20, 1985 which granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. We affirm. Sometime between March 25 and April 3, 1979 while appellant Mary Ann Groover was a patient at the Riddle Memorial Hospital, she received a very painful injection. From the time of the injection, appellant began to suffer pain and loss of control in her right leg.[1] Appellant saw various doctors over the next several years in an attempt to ascertain the problem with her leg. In June of 1983, Dr. Pierre LeRoy determined that the pain in her right leg was a sciatic nerve injury and linked it to the injection she received while in the hospital. Appellants filed suit against appellee on September 3, 1983. Appellees contend that the lower court did not abuse its discretion in granting the motion for summary judgment because suit was filed beyond the two year statute of limitations period. Appellants argue that because of the "discovery rule", the statute did not begin to run until June of 1983 when Dr. LeRoy informed appellant of the type of injury she suffered and its cause, and therefore the suit was timely filed. We agree with the appellee and affirm the lower court's order granting the motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment may be granted "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Pa.R.C.P. 1035(b). Taylor v. Tukanowicz, 290 Pa.Super. 581, 435 A.2d 181 (1981) (citation omitted). Cathcart v. Keene Indus. Insulation, 324 Pa.Super. 123, 135-37, 471 A.2d 493, 500 (1984) discussed the "discovery rule", which serves to ameliorate the harsh effects of the statute of limitations. (Footnotes omitted.) We agree with Cathcart's analysis and believe that its rational simplification of the Volpe test commends its adoption in all "discovery rule" cases, not just "creeping disease" cases. Under the facts of this case, the end result achieved by both tests would be the same, but the use of the Cathcart test would allow for more understandable analysis. However, because the Cathcart test has not as yet been applied to medical malpractice cases, we will not *425 go so far as to hold that the two are interchangeable in all cases. In the instant case, we find as a matter of law that in the spring of 1979 appellant knew or reasonably should have known 1) that she was injured, and 2) the operative cause of her injury, and 3) the causative relationship between the injury and the operative conduct. That appellant knew that she was injured in the spring of 1979 is evidenced by her answers to two interrogatories: In interrogatory 18, appellant was asked to state the specific facts upon which she based each claim of negligence or malpractice alleged in this action. She answered: (Emphasis added.) In answers at her deposition, appellant further indicated that she knew she was injured by the spring of 1979. Q. As I understand your testimony, you had an injection that was of some excruciating pain to you, causing a sensation down your leg. The very same day, you complained about that injection to your attending physician. You instructed the next nurse that you saw that you would have no more injections in the hospital. A. Uh-huh. Q. Did you at any time between that date on which that injection occurred and your visit to Dr. DiStefano ever say to yourself, "I wonder whether the problem that I'm experiencing in my right leg resulted from the injection that I received in the hospital that was so excruciatingly painful"? A. I probably did, because I could feel the spot back here and I kept asking I can remember asking Gus to look to see if there was anything there. . . . . Q. When you're referring in your answer to that spot, can I assume that you meant by that spot, the spot where you were injected? A. I never said to myself Q. Please just answer my question. A. All right. That spot. Q. You're referring to the spot where you were injected? A. Right, but I wasn't able to say to me, okay, look, this is what it is and this is why it is. I never said that to me, because I didn't know. I really didn't know. Q. When you went to see these various Doctors over the course of the two years leading up to your ultimate examination *427 by Dr. DiStefano, did you tell these Doctors about the injection? A. I told them that it started to hurt here, and I'm pointing to that spot where I got the injection, and where it radiated from that point. I told them then they would ask questions and in the course of my answers, the fact that I received an injection would come out. Furthermore, appellant knew or reasonably should have known in the spring of 1979 that her injury was caused by the conduct of another, (that is, she knew the "operative cause"). In her answer to interrogatory number 18 (set forth in pertinent part, supra), appellant stated that her injuries began at the time of the injections during her stay in the hospital from March 25 to April 3, 1979. The lower court opinion sets forth the following details about the painful injection appellant received. *428 The facts in this case clearly indicate that in the spring of 1979 appellant either knew or reasonably should have known that the injection, administered at the appellee hospital, was the cause of her injury. Therefore, since the two year statute of limitations began to run in the spring of 1979, and appellants did not file suit until September, 1983, appellant's claim is barred. Appellant maintains that the discovery rule delayed the running of the statute. She argues that from the time she received the painful injection in the spring of 1979 until June of 1983, she continuously sought help concerning the pain in her right leg, and that she attempted to determine the type of injury she suffered and the cause of that injury. She contends that she saw numerous doctors who did not know what was wrong with her leg. Appellant need not have known the precise medical cause of the injury in order to commence the running of the statute of limitations. She need only to have known was that she was injured. "An injury is done when the act heralding a possible tort inflicts a damage which is physically objective and ascertainable." Ayers v. Morgan, 397 Pa. 282, 290, 154 A.2d 788, 792 (1959). The act which heralded a possible tort in this case was the painful injection administered to appellant in the spring of 1979. The physically objective and ascertainable damage inflicted by the injection was the pain and loss of control of appellant's right leg. We recently wrote in Held v. Neft, 352 Pa.Super. 195, 507 A.2d 839 (1986) that: "A lay person is not reasonably expected to know the precise medical cause of such an injury even though he knows that the injury was occassioned by a discrete medical procedure." 352 Pa.Superior Ct. at 200, 507 A.2d at 841. Appellant alleges that the physicians with whom she consulted told her that they did not know what the problem was. Reading appellant's allegations in a common sense fashion, we believe that appellant knew or reasonably should have known that the cause of her problem was the painful injection and sought relief from various physicians *429 in an effort to alleviate the pain. The statements by the physicians should not be read to mean that they did not know, or suspect that the injection caused the injury. Rather, common sense suggests that the statements should be read to mean that the physicians were not medically certain as to the precise medical reason that the injection triggered the problems, and that they were unsure as to how they should be treated. Appellant stated in her deposition that she told the physicians with whom she consulted about the injection. "I told them that it started to hurt here, and I'm pointing to that spot where I got the injection, and where it radiated from that point." In her counter-affidavit to appellee's motion for summary judgment, appellant alleged that all of the doctors she saw did not know the cause of her injury until one doctor, in December of 1982, began to suspect that the cause may be related to the injections. This does not alter our holding. From the facts related, supra, at the very least, appellant reasonably should have known that her problems were caused by the injection. One need only know (or reasonably should know) that he is injured and that the injury was caused by the conduct of another. See Cathcart, supra. As to the second prong of the Cathcart test, it is only essential that the injured party know or reasonably should know that the conduct of another has caused the injury. It is not necessary that he know, or reasonably should know, that the conduct of another was negligent. DeMartino v. Albert Einstein Medical Ctr. N.D., 313 Pa.Super. 492, 460 A.2d 295 (1983). In DeMartino, we summed up the principles governing this area of the law. Id., 313 Pa.Superior Ct. at 502, 460 A.2d at 300. The law allowed the appellant two full years from the spring of 1979 to investigate and bring an action. More than four years passed before suit was filed. We must insist that those who assert claims of negligence be vigilant in bringing legal action based thereon. The statute of limitations demands nothing less. As our Supreme Court has stated: Pocono Intern. Raceway v. Pocono Produce, 503 Pa. 80, 85, 468 A.2d 468, 471 (1983). "[E]ven though a person may not discover his injury until it is too late to take advantage of the appropriate remedy, this is incident to a law arbitrarily making legal remedies contingent on mere lapse of time." Id. In the instant case while appellant may be said to have exercised diligence in seeking medical care, she did not *431 exercise diligence in seeking legal relief. The two are not synonymous.[2] We hold that because appellant here has not exercised sufficient vigilance in asserting her claim, her claim is necessarily barred. Judgment affirmed. [1] In answer to an interrogatory, appellant referred to more than one injection given to her from March 25 to April 3, 1979 as causing her injury. On appeal, she focuses on the one, painful, injection as the cause. [2] While the Volpe test has a third prong to it, we need not delve into an analysis of it because it adds nothing to the first two tests we have already discussed. Under the facts of this case, the Volpe and Cathcart tests are interchangeable and would lead to identical results. It will be left to future panels to decide if the two tests are interchangeable in all cases.