Court Opinion

ID: 9769981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:10:06.22721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:09.597356
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
There is evidence that appellee Hodges signed the written instrument quoted in our original opinion whereby he authorized the sigmoidoscopic internal and external hemorrhoidectomy. Hodges does not deny that he signed the instrument. He admits he signed a number of papers, but that he “didn’t see anything on them.” As we pointed out in our original opinion there was no pleading and no evidence of fraud, accident, mistake, undue influence or mental incapacity in connection with the signing of the quoted written instrument. Such being the case we cannot give any probative effect to his statement that he didn’t see anything on the papers he signed, or his statement that he did not authorize the operation for hemorrhoidectomy though the statements were admitted without objection. Patton v. Crews, 264 S.W.2d 467 (Tex.Civ.App., Fort Worth 1954, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Texarkana & Ft. S. Ry. Co. v. Brass, 260 S.W. 828, 833 (Tex.Comm’n App.1924, judgment adopted); So. Surety Co. v. Nalle & Co., 242 S.W. 197, 201 (Tex. Comm’n App.1922, holding approved); John E. Morrison Co. v. Riley, 198 S.W. 1031, 1033 (Tex.Civ.App., Fort Worth 1917, no writ); Henry et al v. Phillips, 105 Tex. 459, 151 S.W. 533, 538 (1912); 23 Tex.Jur.2d 504.
Dr. Raynor was the only medical witness offered by appellee Hodges. The doctor’s testimony included the following:
“Q. Did the area of the hemorrhoid surgery in any way involve this abscess you found?
“A. Only by proximity to it. It didn’t go to the abscess itself. The abscess had not been opened, but still it was in what you would consider contaminated area.
“Q. Did you find any connection between the condition — the infectious condition of the abscess?
“A. Only in that operating near the abscess would make it prone to become infected.”

“Q. All right. Is there any doubt, doctor — any reason you could see why a physician or anyone looking at this rectal area of Mr. Hodges some four days before you saw him, couldn’t have seen the presence of this infection?
“A. I would think they could have; yes.”

“Q. Doctor, by doing the extensive surgery that was done, as you found in Mr. Hodges, did this in any way increase the risks of complications to his rectal area?
“A. Yes.
“Q. In what ways? -
“A. By the scarring that followed and the infection involving the anus-rectal musculature.”

“Q. At the time you saw Mr. Hodges out at the Durgin residence, was there much deep involvement of tissues at that time, sir?
“A. Not with scarring up to that point. Scarring takes a little longer than four days, but the infection was present.”

*749

“Q. Why did that diarrhea persist?
“A. That’s a two-fold thing that you haven’t covered completely. He had a scarring of the anus, which caused the loss of sphincter tone, but this was being aggravated by the pre-existing condition, which flared up, which was his previous surgery. In other words, this was not a normal man.” (Emphasis ours.)

“Q. Doctor, assuming that this man had had surgery where the hemorrhoids had been removed, as they were in this man’s case, wouldn’t he have been inviting infection by leaving the hospital, putting on his clothes, going out and driving around in a car, having doctors examine him, and then getting in his clothes again and driving in a car to Graham, Texas? Wouldn’t he be inviting infection?
“A. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.
“Q. Wouldn’t he be more likely to get infection if he did that than if he stayed in the hospital?
“A. It was my understanding he had just been discharged very shortly before that.”

“Q. Well, if he was infected, as you say he was, and in great pain so that you couldn’t touch him, as you say he was, wouldn’t it have been better for him, regardless of where you were practicing, to get him into Baylor?
“A. It wasn’t that urgent, sir.” (Emphasis ours.)

“Q. So, anyway, the things that we have on record here do not indicate any infectious process, do they?
“A. You’re referring only to the blood count.
“Q. No, I’m referring to the blood count and the temperature.
“A. He had extreme pain, required sitz baths, extensive narcotics, even much beyond the normal hemorrhoidectomy.
“Q. Yes, but the only two — and if you can find any other obj ective things in this record, besides your observation, that show infection, I wish you would point it out to me.
“A. He required daily dressings of his abscess.”

“Q. Okay. Now, doctor, are you— you saw this patient first late in the evening of December 17th, 1964?
“A. I believe that’s right.
“Q. Now, are you telling this Court and Jury that you, as a doctor, know, or in reasonable probability know that four days prior to that — December 14th, in the morning or afternoon, of 1964 — that this man had an abscess that was nearly as big as when you saw it?
“A. History is also important. He had an abscess.
“Q. ‘History’ — you mean what he told you.
“A. Yes. That is taken along with the size of the abscess and the duration. His knowledge of previous abscesses. I believe he had had two lanced over a number of years, and being an inch and a half or two inches from the anus was a pretty obvious thing to him.”

We have again studied the record in this case and must adhere to our original opinion: the answers of the jury to issues in regard to proximate cause are so contrary to the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly wrong.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.