Opinion ID: 1731023
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: failure to give requested jury charge

Text: Defendant Jackson claims that the trial judge committed reversible error in refusing to give Jackson's written requested jury charge No. 5. That charge, alleges Jackson, stated a correct principle of law which was applicable to the instant case and which was not covered by the judge's oral charge. The refused written charge stated: I charge you the fact that Ronnie Joe Cowan died while under the care and treatment of the Defendant, Jackson Hospital and Clinic, Inc., does not in and of itself mean that the Plaintiffs are entitled to recover a judgment against the Defendant Jackson Hospital and Clinic, Inc. The Plaintiffs have the burden of proof in this case to reasonably satisfy you from the evidence that Jackson Hospital and Clinic, Inc., did not use the care, skill and diligence that the ordinarily skilled hospital in the same general neighborhood uses under like or similar circumstances and that this failure to exercise such care, skill and diligence on the part of Jackson Hospital and Clinic, Inc., was the direct cause of the death of Ronnie Joe Cowan. If the Plaintiffs have not reasonably satisfied you of these facts, from the evidence, then they have failed to meet the burden of proof required by law and are not entitled to a verdict against the Defendant Jackson Hospital and Clinic, Inc. The trial court's oral charge, however, when viewed in its entirety, sufficiently covered all principles of law which govern the correct disposition of the issues of this case. Specifically, the trial judge's oral charge included the following statements: The complaint alleges against the defendant Jackson Hospital, that the defendant undertook to provide hospital and nursing care to the deceased, and that the defendant negligently failed to provide proper hospital and nursing care to the plaintiff's intestate. The defendants, in response to these allegations ... have each separately entered pleas of the general issue or general denial. Under the law, a plea of the general issue has the effect of placing the burden of proof on the plaintiffs to reasonably satisfy you from the evidence, the truth of those things claimed by them in the bill of complaint. The defendants carry no burden of proof. . . . As to the defendant Jackson Hospital, the duty arises in that in rendering services to a patient, a hospital must use that degree of care, skill, and diligence used by hospitals generally in the community under similar circumstances. . . . Negligence is not actionable unless the negligence is the proximate cause of the injury. The law defines proximate cause as that cause which in the natural and probable sequence of events and without the intervention of any new or independent cause, produces the injury, and without which such injury would not have occurred. For an act to constitute actionable negligence, there must not only be some causal connection between the negligent act complained of and the injury suffered, but connection must be by natural and unbroken sequence, without intervening deficient causes, so that but for the negligence of the defendant, the injury would not have occurred. If one is guilty of negligence which concurs or combines with the negligence of another, and the two combine to produce injury, each negligent person is liable for the resulting injury. And the negligence of each will be deemed the proximate cause of the injury. Concurrent causes may be defined as two or more causes which run together and act contemporaneously to produce a given result or to inflict an injury. This does not mean that the causes of the acts producing the injury must necessarily occur simultaneously, but they must be active simultaneously to efficiently and proximately produce a result. In an action against two or more defendants for injury allegedly caused by combined or concurring negligence of the defendants, it is not necessary to show negligence of all the defendants in order for recovery to be had against one or more shown to be negligent. If you are reasonably satisfied from the evidence in this case that all of the defendants are negligent and that their negligence concurred and combined to proximately cause the injury complained by the plaintiffs, then each defendant is liable to the plaintiffs. Moreover, the language of Jackson's requested charge No. 5the direct cause does not contemplate joint tortfeasors. To be sufficient the charge need only have been enlarged to state that the hospital's conduct must have been one of the direct causes that combined to result in death or must have been the direct cause of death. Because Jackson's requested charge was insufficient in this respect, it could properly have been refused. Other alleged errors were either not sufficiently preserved or were not so prejudicial as to warrant reversal. Therefore, we affirm. AFFIRMED. TORBERT, C. J., and MADDOX, SHORES and BEATTY, JJ., concur.