Opinion ID: 2438826
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: alleged errors in the court's charge

Text: The Locality Rule The charge defined negligence of the hospital as the doing of that which an ordinary prudent hospital ... in the exercise of ordinary care would not have done under the same or similar circumstances .... (Emphasis added.) Ordinary care was defined as that degree of care that a hospital of ordinary prudence ... would have exercised under the same or similar circumstances.  (Emphasis added.) Negligence and ordinary care of the physicians were similarly defined. These definitions closely parallel those contained in the Texas Pattern Jury Charges. See, 3 STATE BAR OF TEXAS, TEXAS PATTERN JURY CHARGES, PJC 40.01, 40.02. The defendants attacked these definitions because they failed to refer to hospitals and physicians in this or similar communities, and thus do not reflect the locality rule. The purpose of the locality rule is to prevent unrealistic comparisons between the standards of practice in communities where resources and facilities might vastly differ. The definitions in the court's charge meet this concern, because the means available to the defendant are part of the pertinent circumstances. See, Hood v. Phillips, 554 S.W.2d 160, 165 (Tex.1977). We hold that these definitions were proper, as did the court below. 718 S.W.2d at 332. Purported Comments on the Weight of the Evidence The Birchfields' Issues one through four were intended to broadly submit the questions of negligence and proximate cause. See, TEX.R.CIV.P. 277. The wording of these issues is fully set forth in the court of appeals' opinion. 718 S.W.2d at 329. Issue No. 1 is demonstrative of the form of each of these issues: Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that Wadley Hospital ... [was] negligent in the care and treatment of Kellie Lee Birchfield with respect to any of the following which was a proximate cause of her blindness? Answer yes or no to each item. A. As to adequate nursing services _____