Court Opinion

ID: 9570598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:24:31.95255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:57.662224
License: Public Domain

Adams, J.
(dissenting). Plaintiff prevailed in her claim that the defendant wrongfully removed her right fallopian tube in 1940 when she was 10 years of age. She also prevailed in her claim that defendant fraudulently concealed his action until it was discovered in 1959. Had there been no fraudulent concealment, plaintiff’s claim would have accrued long before it did. Upon such accrual, her damages would have been the loss of a reserve tube. *96In this case, however, there is no need for a jury to envision plaintiff’s damages resulting from such a loss. The ultimate consequence had already occurred.
This consequence of defendant’s act was foreseeable. Dr. Biggs testified:
“Q. Now, Doctor, have you had any experience with so-called ovarian cysts in your surgical experience ?
“A. Yes, I have.
“Q. Have you seen them?
“A. Many times.
“Q. How frequently would you say, Doctor?
“A. Well, a simple cyst, it is not seen every day, but they are quite common. Cysts of the ovary are very common. And cysts such as tubal ovarian cysts, they are seen right along. I mean, the percentage is not high, but we see them. I would say in female surgery which is probably—g-y-n surgery —years ago was more than it is now; but I would say at one time ran as high as probably 70 percent. However, now it is down. I would say it is considerably down. I would say probably it is 25 or 30 percent.
“Q. Have you had experience with so-called par-ovarian cysts yourself?
“A. Yes, I have, on many occasions.
“Q. Have you ever seen one as large as a so-called orange?
“A. Oh, yes,.much larger.”
The testimony of Dr. Adler, under cross-examination by plaintiff’s attorney, was as follows:
“Q. All right. And, if the wall of the fallopian tube has grown right into the wall of the cyst it is entirely possible in removing the cyst to interfere with the,blood supply to the fallopian tube. Is it not?
“A. Only if the cyst was large enough to encroach into the wall of the fallopian tube.
*97“Q. Well, a large size cyst is large enough to do that too?
“A. Not necessarily.
“Q. But it is large enough to do that; is it not? I am not saying in every case now. I am saying, is it not possible that an orange-size cyst would be large enough to encroach on the wall of the fallopian tube?
“A. And I Avill have to answer that it would depend on the size of that cyst.
“Q. We already said, orange-size, 2-1/2 to 2-3/4 inches ?
“A. That would not necessarily encroach on the wall of the fallopian tube.
“Q. The question is not Avhether it would necessarily do so. The question is whether it can do so?
“A. I suppose it could.
“Q. All right. And whether or not in removing a parovarian cyst the fallopian tube to AAdiich it is appended is destroyed depends upon whether there is an interference to the blood supply. Is that not right?
“A. You Avill have to give me that question again?
“Q. Well, if there is an interference to the blood supply in the removal of the cyst, so that the tube has no blood supply, then that tube cannot survive; can it?
“The Witness: Your Honor, I don’t think there is any relationship to the blood supply of the tube and the parovarian cyst.
“The Court: All you have to do is say that.
“Q. (By Mr. Downing): If the blood supply to the fallopian tube is interrupted, the fallopian tube cannot survive?
“A. If the blood supply is interrupted, it can’t survive.
“Q. All right. It is then lmoAvn to you that people do—women do develop parovarian cysts during-their lifetime?
“A, It happens.
*98“Q. And it happens frequently enough so that there is considerable surgery of that nature in the removal of cysts. Is that not right!
“A. That is correct.
“Q. It would be something that any osteopathic surgeon should be aware of. Is that not correct!
“A. Any physician should.
“Q. Any physician should be aware that this is likely to occur, that this is possible to occur!
“A. Huh huh.”
From this and other testimony, had it been properly charged by the trial judge, the jury could have found that defendant was responsible for plaintiff’s loss of fertility even though there was an intervening cause.
The extent of a defendant’s responsibility for the consequences of a wrongful act must usually be determined on a case-to-case basis. There are no Michigan cases such as this one, but some Michigan cases are analogous.
In Parks v. Starks, 342 Mich 443, where defendant struck a pillar with his car, rendering the canopy it supported unsafe, there was a time interval between his act of negligence and the time when plaintiff was injured as a result of collapse of the structure. There was also an intervening cause— children who had gone under the canopy and who plaintiff believed to be in danger. The presence of the children precipitated plaintiff’s effort to rescue them which ended in his injury.
In the case of Stahl v. Southern Michigan R. Co., 211 Mich 350, after plaintiff was injured as the result of negligence of the operator of an interurban car, her injuries were aggravated because of an improper diagnosis by a physician. The physician failed to uncover a hip fracture, While packing *99a suit case, plaintiff fell on the injured hip. The Court said (p 355):
“If the suit case injury was the result of the injuries she received in the railway accident, and her own negligence did not contribute to it, she would be entitled to recover all of her damages against the defendant in this action. This rule is well stated in the recent case of Smith v. Railway Co., 79 Wash 448 (140 P 685), where it is said:
“ ‘If a person receives an injury through the negligent act of another, and the injury is afterwards aggravated, and a recovery retarded through some accident not the result of want of ordinary care on the part of the injured person, he may recover for the entire injury sustained, as the law regards the probability of such aggravation as a consequent and natural result likely to follow from the original injury.’ ”
In the above case there was an intervening cause ■—the doctor’s faulty diagnosis—but nevertheless defendant was held liable for the full extent of plaintiff’s injuries.
In the case of Bordner v. McKernan, 294 Mich 411, where plaintiff’s injuries resulted because he was left in a stalled taxicab at night in the middle of the street, it was held that defendant, having put plaintiff in his predicament, must stand for the damages which occurred as a result of the act of a third person.
An English case, Overseas Tankship, Ltd., v. Morts Dock & Engineering Co., Ltd., [1961] AC 388, [1961] 1 All Eng 404 (100 ALR2d 928), lends clarity to the importance of foreseeability in the law of negligence. In that case appellants allowed furnace oil to escape and spread upon the water. A fire was caused when a spark fell from a dock onto waste in the water, igniting the waste and thereby touching off the fuel oil. The trial judge stated:
*100•’ “The raison d’etre of furnace oil is, of course, that it shall burn, but I find the defendant [appellants] did not know and could not reasonably be expected to have known that it was capable of being set afire when spread on water.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Upon appeal to the privy council, the problem was analyzed by Viscount Simonds as follows:
“The essential factor in determining liability is whether the damage is of such a kind as the reasonable man should have foreseen. This accords with the general view thus stated by Lord Atkin in M’Alister (or Donoghue) v. Stevenson:1
“ ‘The liability for negligence, whether you style it such or treat it as in other systems as a species of “culpa,” is no doubt based upon a general public sentiment of moral wrongdoing for which the offender must pay.’
“It is a departure from this sovereign principle if liability is made to depend solely on the damage being the ‘direct’ or ‘natural’ consequence of the precedent act. Who knows or can be assumed to know all the processes of nature? But if it would be wrong that a man should be held liable for damage unpredictable by a reasonable man because it was ‘direct’ or ‘natural’ equally it would be wrong that he should escape liability, however ‘indirect’ the damage, if he foresaw or could reasonably foresee the intervening events ivhich led to its being done; cf. Woods v. Duncan.”2 (Emphasis supplied.)
Plaintiff would not have been rendered sterile but for the loss of the second fallopian tube. The loss of the second fallopian tube would not have rendered her sterile but for the wrongful removal of the first one. Since plaintiff’s harm can be traced *101in fact to defendant, a jury might find defendant liable for the foreseeable consequences of his act.
Dr. Biggs and Dr. Adler testified with regard to the frequency of operations for ovarian cysts and their potential for danger. We cannot say that there is no room for disagreement among reasonable men that the intervening event was not foreseeable. Consequently, I hold that it was a question for the jury to decide whether defendant, an osteopathic physician, could reasonably have foreseen that his removal of plaintiff’s right fallopian tube, due to possibility of loss of the left tube, might result in plaintiff being rendered sterile.
I do not agree with Justice Souris that, by permitting such a question to go to the jury, we would be opening the door to the sort of claim he hypothesizes for loss of a second leg. People walk on two legs. The loss of one is a grievous injury. The testimony in this case was that women can bear children (remain fully functional in this respect) with one fallopian tube. Hence, the loss of but one fallopian tube is of little consequence.
In this respect, I would liken the loss of a fallopian tube to the loss of a kidney. A human being-can survive with one kidney. If a physician wrongfully removes one kidney, is the injured person to be restricted to minimal damages or is recovery by his estate to be so restricted in event of his death because the second kidney was lost from some other cause ?
I would reverse and remand, granting a full new trial rather than simply a new trial on the issue of damages. In Bias v. Ausbury, 369 Mich 378, this Court reversed and granted a new trial limited to the question of damages. However, in this case the issues are so bound up in one another that in fairness to both parties there ought not to be a sever*102anee of the damage issue or consideration of it alone.
Plaintiff should have costs.
Black, J., concurred in result.
T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., did not sit.

 [1932] AO 562, 580.

 [1946] AC 401.