Court Opinion

ID: 9725082
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:28:31.167316+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:09.773926
License: Public Domain

Opinion
KINGSLEY, J.
Defendants appeal from a judgment against them in an action for medical malpractice. We reverse the judgment.
Plaintiff, a young woman of 21, had had two children by caesarean section; she was again pregnant and faced a third delivery. She was told by a doctor on the staff of defendant that any further such deliveries would be highly dangerous. The doctor recommended that, when the third caesarean was performed, she should have, at the same time, a bilateral tubal ligation. Plaintiff’s testimony was that, during several conversations on the subject, the doctor told her that such an operation was “permanent and irreversible.” Discussions with another staff doctor allegedly contained the same statement. The operation was performed but plaintiff became pregnant a few months later. That new pregnancy required her to have a therapeutic abortion and a second tubular surgeiy.
The case went to the jury on three theories: medical negligence; lack of informed consent; and breach of warranty. The jury brought in a general verdict for plaintiff in the amount of $22,500. A motion for new trial was denied.
On this appeal, defendants do not attack the instructions on negligence or on lack of informed consent.1 The contentions here made are: (1) that *170it was error to instruct at all on the breach of warranty theory; (2) that, if such an instruction was proper, the one given misstated the law; and (3) that plaintiff’s trial counsel was guilty of prejudicial misconduct in his closing argument to the jury. We reject the first contention; agree with the second; and deem discussion of the third unnecessary.
I
Relying primarily on Cobbs v. Grant (1972) 8 Cal.3d 229 [104 Cal.Rptr. 505, 502 P.2d 1], defendants contend that a recovery for medical malpractice can be had only on a theory of negligence. That reliance is misplaced. Cobbs involved a case submitted to a jury only on the theories of negligence and lack of informed consent. The Supreme Court reversed because it found that the record did not support a finding of negligence. It then discussed the informed consent theory. The trial court had phrased its instructions on the theory that lack of informed consent amounted to a battery. The holding was that, except where a surgeon performs an entirely different operation than the one discussed with the patient, lack of informed consent involves not battery but negligence. The language from the opinion relied on by defendants concerns only that issue; it was not directed to, and does not apply to, cases such as the one at. bench where it is claimed that the surgeon had guaranteed a particular result.
In Crawford v. Duncan (1923) 61 Cal.App. 647 [215 P. 573], plaintiff alleged that she had consented to radium treatments in reliance on the express oral statement of defendant doctor “that no permanent scar of any kind would result from the treatment,” a warranty that proved to be false. The court held that she was entitled to recover on the theory of a breach of an express contract, a cause of action on which the statute of limitations had not run.
In Custodio v. Bauer (1967) 251 Cal.App.2d 303 [59 Cal.Rptr. 463, 27 A.L.R.3d 884], the court considered the sufficiency, as against general demurrer, of a complaint for medical malpractice based on a variety of theories. One of those theories was a breach of an express contract that a proposed operation would result in sterilization of the plaintiff wife. After pointing out that, absent an express contract, there could be recovery only for negligence, the court said (at p. 315): “It is generally *171recognized that, where there is proof of an express contract, the physician can be held liable for a promise to effect a cure or a certain result. (See Miller, The Contractual Liability of Physicians and Surgeons (1953) Washington U.L.Q. 413; Louisell & Williams, op.cit., par. 8.10, p. 225; Morgan v. Rosenberg (Mo.App. 1963) 370 S.W.2d 685; Noel v. Proud (1961) 189 Kan. 6 [367 P.2d 61]; Stewart v. Rudner (1957) 349 Mich. 459, 467-469 [84 N.W.2d 816, 822-823]; Robins v. Finestone (1955) 308 N.Y. 543 [127 N.E.2d 330]; Colvin v. Smith (1949) 276 App.Div. 9 [92 N.Y.S.2d 794, 795].)”
We conclude that, if a plaintiff can prove to a properly instructed juiy that a surgeon has clearly promised a particular result (as distinguished from a mere generalized statement that the result will be good),2 and that the patient consented to an operation or other procedure in reliance on that promise, there can be recovery on the theoiy of warranty (or, to give the theory its more accurate name, breach of contract).
II
At plaintiff’s request, the trial court gave the following instruction; “One of the elements of a contract to perform a bilateral tubal ligation may be an affirmation of the fact or promise that such operation possess some characteristic results. Such an affirmation of fact or promise is called a warranty.”
Defendants contend that that instruction was erroneous. We agree. Admittedly, the “characteristic” result of a bilateral tubular ligation is sterility. The problem that gives rise to this case is that, in a certain percentage of the cases, the result is not characteristic but noncharacteristic. The medical evidence is that, for a variety of reasons, some involving medical negligence and some not, sterilization does not result. The issue for the jury was not whether the doctors advising plaintiff had told her of the “characteristics” of the operation—that they had done and such advice would not have resulted in an action for breach of contract, although it might support an action on the theory of lack of informed consent. The issue was whether the doctors had told plaintiff that the operation would, without doubt, result in permanent and irreversible sterilization. The instruction as given diverted the attention of the juiy from the real issue and was prejudicially erroneous.
*172III
Since we must reverse for the reason just given, we need not, and do not, consider the third contention of defendants—namely that the closing argument for plaintiff amounted to misconduct. That argument, if improper, is not likely to be repeated on a new trial.
The judgment is reversed.
Files, P. J., concurred.

Because defendants on this appeal do not raise any issues other than those set forth in the text, we omit discussion of the extensive testimony on the negligence and informed consent issues, beyond the comment that the evidence, although conflicting, was sufficient to support a verdict on either of the alternative theories.
However, as the Supreme Court said in Cobbs v. Grant (1972) 8 Cal.3d 229, 238 [104 Cal.Rptr. 505, 502 P.2d 1]: “Since it is impossible to determine on which theory the jury verdict rested, we conclude it is reasonably probable there has been a miscarriage of justice. We therefore reverse the judgment.”

As in Marvin v. Talbott (1962) 216 Cal.App.2d 383 [30 Cal.Rptr. 893, 5 A.L.R.3d 908].