Court Opinion

ID: 9720625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:37:49.178949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:20.065629
License: Public Domain

HANSON, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the majority’s opinion that, since the jury found that Officer Saurman did not falsely imprison or batter Jerry Wright, Jr., no factual basis supported imposing *357liability on Officer Saurman. The record shows that when the police arrived in the middle of the night, they faced a scene of utter confusion. The police observed the deceased, Jerry Wright, Jr., driving a vehicle over one Leroy Jones’s hand. There was evidence that Wright and Jones had been involved in a fight, which each accused the other of having caused. Family members and neighbors who congregated at the scene joined the accusations. Clearly the police had a duty to sort out this confusion, to restore order, and to summon paramedics, and they satisfied their duty.
I respectfully dissent with regard to the majority opinion’s finding of liability as to paramedic Maloney’s conduct. The majority opinion’s sole basis for reversal concerns Maloney’s failure to examine Jerry Wright, Jr., for symptoms of shock. Plaintiff’s theory of proximate causation is that had the paramedics treated the deceased victim for symptoms of shock, that treatment would have saved him from the true cause of death, which was not shock but sickle cell crisis. To base liability not on a failure to treat symptoms of the cause of death, but because a paramedic did not treat symptoms of another medical problem, is a quantum leap unsupported by legal authority that I am not prepared to take. In my view paramedic Maloney, as a matter of law, cannot be held liable for the unforeseeable consequences of failing to examine for or to treat symptoms of shock when a sickling crisis caused the death of Jerry Wright, Jr.
Furthermore, the controlling evidence as to the standard of care upon which the majority bases its finding of paramedical negligence is that outlined by the defense’s expert witness, Nurse Jones. That testimony, however, made insufficent allowance for the totality of unique circumstances surrounding the actual event. Nurse Jones was not a percipient witness to what transpired at the scene.
The standard of care to which the paramedic should be held is that of “gross” negligence, defined as the lack of even scant care or an extreme departure from the ordinary standard of conduct; the amount of care reasonable under given circumstances is related to the apparent risk. Maloney was not trained to treat someone undergoing sickling crisis. Nothing triggered his awareness that Wright had sickle cell anemia. Although the paramedic’s examination did not conform in all particulars with the paramedical standard of care, it nevertheless did constitute “gross” negligence. Keeping in mind that standard of care and remembering that Maloney had no knowledge of the concealed disease of sickle cell anemia that actually caused Jerry Wright, Jr.’s, death, I cannot say that the trial court erroneously granted the judgment notwithstanding the verdict (j.n.o.v.)
As counsel for both sides concede, no case law adjudicates wrongful death arising from sickle cell anemia under these facts. This would be the *358first case imposing liability because a paramedic failed to test or treat for symptoms of something other than the actual cause of death. In my opinion, imposing liability under the totality of circumstances of this case stretches the nexus of liability close to absolute liability, and finds no basis in legislated or decisional law.
In sum, because the proof does not establish Maloney’s “gross” negligence, I cannot say the trial court erroneously the granted the j.n.o.v. I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The petition of defendants and appellants for review by the Supreme Court was denied June 20, 1990.