Opinion ID: 2368220
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: requests to charge

Text: The defendant claims error in the court's failure to charge the jury in accordance with four separate requests. [4] Although the defendant has not complied with Practice Book, 1978, § 3060F, [5] we shall, nevertheless, review the claim in the interest of justice. See Practice Book, 1978, § 3164. The defendant requested the court to charge the jury that the plaintiff failed to produce any evidence that the standard practice of similar hospitals in the community differed in any respect from the defendant's standards, that the standard practice of similar hospitals required the defendant to do anything different from what it had done and that these are the bases upon which the defendant's acts must be judged. In making this request the defendant, in essence, was asking for a directed verdict. Obviously, if the defendant's standards were no different from those of similar hospitals and if the defendant's conduct measured up to those standards there would be no basis for a recovery by the plaintiff. In fact the plaintiff offered a plethora of evidence that the defendant violated the standard of due care. There was evidence that the defendant failed to remove the steel bed frame from the seclusion room, failed to place both side rails of the bed down, used an improper mattress, failed to maintain constant observation of the plaintiff, failed to assess personally the patient and break the seclusion, failed to notify the plaintiff's physician or a hospital physician of a significant change in the plaintiff's condition and improperly designed and located the seclusion room. While the evidence of failures or improper conduct was disputed by the defendant there was a submissible issue of fact which the defendant's request sought to remove from the jury. When the evidence is contested, a request to charge which is so worded as to be equivalent to a directed verdict is improper. DeCarufel v. Colonial Trust Co., 143 Conn. 18, 20, 118 A.2d 798 (1955). The defendant requested two charges on foreseeability. After rejecting these requests, the court charged the jury as follows: One of the tests for determining whether the defendants exercised that degree of care, skill and diligence required under the circumstances is whether the harm that resulted from the lack of care could reasonably have been foreseen. The plaintiff need not prove, however, that the defendant could foresee that her injury would occur in exactly the manner it did. The concept of foreseeability means only that the harm of the general nature of that suffered might have been anticipated that Miss Pisel might in some way cause herself harm on the bed. Was it foreseeable that the harm of the general nature of that which occurred could have occurred. This charge correctly stated the law. Steinhaus v. Steinhaus, 145 Conn. 95, 98, 139 A.2d 55 (1958); Borsoi v. Sparico, 141 Conn. 366, 369-70, 106 A.2d 170 (1954); Orlo v. Connecticut Co., 128 Conn. 231, 237, 21 A.2d 402 (1941). The court properly refused to give the defendant's instructions that the defendant could not be held liable for a bizarre or unusual occurrence which it had no reason to foresee because that is not the law. It is quite apparent that the defendant has a parallactic view of foreseeability. For example, it cites correctly the statement in Wright v. Coe & Anderson, Inc., 156 Conn. 145, 152, 239 A.2d 493 (1968), that the test of foreseeability is: [W]ould the ordinary man, in the defendant's position, knowing what it knew or should have known, anticipate that harm of the general nature of that suffered by the plaintiff was likely to result unless reasonable care was taken. (Emphasis added.) Then it introduces a distortion by applying this principle to the present case using the following language: [W]ould the hospital personnel in the same position as the hospital personnel in this case, in the exercise of that degree of care, skill and diligence as possessed and exercised by other hospital personnel in the state in living up to the required standard of care ... , foreseen [sic] a patient coming to harm in the manner that it claimed this plaintiff did. (Emphasis added.) It is the general harm that must be foreseen, not the particular injury. The concept of foreseeability was correctly applied in this case to determine if the harm which resulted was within the scope of the risk created by the defendant's conduct. See Restatement (Second), Torts § 281, comment f. The defendant seeks to combine this issue with the question of whether it should be held liable for unusual consequences of its negligence which came about in a bizarre manner. Although the two issues often overlap, one concerns whether certain conduct is negligent at all, while the other is purely a question of proximate cause. See James, Scope of Duty in Negligence Cases, 47 Nw. U. L. Rev. 196 (1953); Prosser, Palsgraf Revisited, 52 Mich. L. Rev. 1 (1953). We address the proximate cause issue infra. Concerning the first issue, so long as harm of the general nature as that which occurred is foreseeable there is a basis for liability even though the manner in which the accident happens is unusual, bizarre or unforeseeable. Figlar v. Gordon, 133 Conn. 577, 582, 53 A.2d 645 (1947); Mitnick v. Whalen Bros., Inc., 115 Conn. 650, 651, 163 A. 414 (1932). The foreseeability issue, put in proper perspective, is not very complex. It was a jury question whether the defendant could have anticipated that harm would come to the plaintiff from the steel frame bed given all the factors which the defendant knew or should have known. The jury's affirmative answer cannot be disturbed. Finally, the defendant requested a charge [5] absolving it of liability as a matter of law if the jury concluded that the physicians and hospital personnel took a calculated risk in the treatment of the plaintiff. The court properly refused this request because it is not a correct statement of the law. State v. Chetcuti, 173 Conn. 165, 171, 377 A.2d 263 (1977). A physician is absolved from a bona fide error of judgment only if he exercises the requisite care and skill. Green v. Stone, 121 Conn. 324, 330, 185 A. 72 (1936). The requested charge, however, is so broad that it would have swept under the protective umbrella of calculated risk any and all acts of omission or commission no matter how egregiously negligent.