Title: Paintiff v. City of Parkersburg
Citation: 345 S.E.2d 564
Docket Number: 16621
State: west-virginia
Issuer: west-virginia Supreme Court
Date: March 25, 1986

345 S.E.2d 564 (1986) Sharon L. PAINTIFF, et al. v. The CITY OF PARKERSBURG, etc., dba Camden Clark Memorial Hospital, et al., and William E. Gilmore. No. 16621. Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. March 25, 1986. Rehearing Denied July 9, 1986. *565 George E. Lantz, David G. Palmer, Lantz, Rudolph &amp; Palmer, Parkersburg, for appellants. Diana Everett, Renner, Everett, Bash &amp; Powell, Parkersburg, for City and Bd. of Trustees. Daniel A. Ruley, Jr., Morris &amp; Ruley, Richard A. Hayhurst, Davis, Bailey, Pfalzgraf &amp; Hall, Parkersburg, for William Gilmore. NEELY, Justice: The sole issue on this appeal is the extent to which the "locality rule" in medical malpractice cases shall continue to be followed in West Virginia. We find that our own prior cases have so eroded the rule that it is but a shadow of its former self and that medical practice in West Virginia has changed to such an extent that there is no longer any social policy to be served by allowing a vestige of the rule to linger. Therefore, the locality rule in West Virginia medical malpractice cases is abolished. In September, 1981 Sharon Paintiff contacted William E. Gilmore, M.D. for sterilization surgery. Dr. Gilmore admitted Mrs. Paintiff to the defendant hospital and performed a surgical tubal ligation upon her. Mrs. Paintiff later ascertained that at the time of the surgery she had been pregnant for approximately three to four weeks. In their complaint Mr. and Mrs. Paintiff alleged that: (1) the doctor was negligent in failing to perform a pregnancy test upon Mrs. Paintiff prior to performing the surgery; and, (2) the hospital was negligent in allowing the doctor to perform the surgery without having conducted appropriate tests. The complaint also alleged that x-ray exposure and medications for pain and infections attendant upon the tubal ligation caused the plaintiffs to suffer anxiety about the health of the fetus, which prompted Mrs. Paintiff to have a therapeutic abortion. The Circuit Court of Wood County granted a directed verdict in favor of the defendant hospital and defendant doctor based upon plaintiffs' failure to produce expert medical testimony from witnesses who had personal knowledge of the appropriate standard of performance of the average surgeon in good standing in the area of Parkersburg, West Virginia in September, 1981. The plaintiffs attempted to prove their case by the testimony of Dr. Carl E. Nichols, an obstetrician-gynecologist, licensed to practice in West Virginia since 1969. Dr. Nichols testified that he had done several tubal ligations and that he was familiar with the accepted standards of medical practice for doing tubal ligations. Nonetheless, the circuit court held his testimony was inadmissible because he was unable to testify concerning the accepted, customary and usual medical practice and procedure among general surgeons in good standing in Parkersburg, West Virginia in 1981. Similarly, Alfred Prieto, M.D., an obstetrician-gynecologist, practicing in Parkersburg for nine years was called. Dr. Prieto *566 testified that he had done hundreds of tubal ligation surgeries. When asked: "Doctor, are you familiar with the usual and customary medical practice and procedure for doctors of approved standing performing tubal ligations in the area of Parkersburg, West Virginia, in September, 1981, with regard to performing that surgery?", the trial court disallowed the question on the grounds that the doctor was required to testify about what the standard was for an average general surgeon. Plaintiff's trial counsel made several efforts to rephrase the question, but the witness was eventually excused when it became obvious that the doctor could not testify that he had knowledge concerning customary, standard practice for general surgeons in the area of Parkersburg doing tubal ligation surgery. Both Dr. Nichols and Dr. Prieto demonstrated that they were aware of the generally accepted, standard procedures for doing tubal ligation surgery, and that they were willing to testify that a test for pregnancy would be a precondition for doing the surgery in any woman of child-bearing age. Surely, their testimony would have been relevant and competent. The trial court should not have excluded their testimony either because they were not general surgeons or because they were unfamiliar with the peculiarities of surgical practice in Parkersburg. As long ago as 1967 this Court effectively emasculated the "locality rule" in the case of Hundley v. Martinez, 151 W.Va. 977, 158 S.E.2d 159 (1967) in which Justice Caplan explained: 151 W.Va. at 984-992, 158 S.E.2d at 166-168. Our explicit overruling of the locality rule today was presaged in the case of Thornton v. CAMC, ___ W.Va. ___, 305 S.E.2d 316 (1983) in which the plaintiff assigned as error several defense instructions on the medical standard of care which contained the phrase "in accord with reasonable care and diligence as practiced by accredited physicians and surgeons in a locality similar to that in which defendant Pushkin's services were rendered." In that case, Justice Miller pointed out that we had "virtually abandoned" the locality rule in Hundley, supra, and that we had entirely abolished the locality rule for nursing malpractice in Duling v. Bluefield Sanitarium, Inc., 149 W.Va. 567, 142 S.E.2d 754 (1965). However, in Thornton, Justice Miller avoided a full discussion of the locality issue because plaintiffs' attorney had not objected to the locality rule language in the defense instructions. Much has been written about the obsolescence of the locality rule. We have nothing to add to the oceans of ink and forests of paper that have been pressed into service to hasten the rule's demise. We will only add that the locality rule is abolished in West Virginia, and we shall not miss it. Accordingly, the judgment of the circuit court is reversed and the case is remanded to the circuit court for a new trial. Reversed and remanded.