Court Opinion

ID: 9576201
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:21:42.426381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:29.318387
License: Public Domain

STRUCKMEYER, Justice
(concurring in result).
The majority have concluded that this case must be reversed because the jury was not instructed on the law of negligence. I concur that the case must be reversed but I cannot agree that it was necessary or even proper for the jury to be instructed on negligence.
Negligence is the failure to exercise ordinary care. Ordinary care in malpractice is the degree of skill and care exercised by others practicing in the same profession in the same community. In this case the degree of skill and care exercised by other dentists was not proved nor was it sought to be proved. Generally in such circumstances the plaintiff has failed to show how the defendant’s conduct was negligent; but here since the defendant admitted that the testimony for the plaintiff, if believed, was care unfit for human beings, there was no need to show how the defendant’s conduct deviated from the standard of skill and care. The evidence for the plaintiff, if true, showed a lack of due care, a failure to conform to good medical practice, a want of *53proper skill. Why? Simply because the defendant said so.
There was therefore no issue of negligence if the jury believed and found to be true all of the plaintiff’s evidence. There was no issue of negligence if the defendant’s evidence was believed for there being no testimony of the skill or care required of dentists, the legal presumption favoring the defendant arbitrarily compelled the conclusion that this, the defendant’s evidence, was not negligence. On this state of the record it was possible for the jury to arrive at a verdict either for or against either party to this action simply by deciding wherein lay the truth. Since the only issue was whose purported facts spoke the truth, the trial judge did not err in refusing to instruct on negligence for without evidence of the standard of skill to guide the jury, it is impossible to arrive at a rational conclusion in regard thereto.
It is not difficult to understand why this case must be reversed. The defendant’s admission1 was conditioned and limited to the condition imposed by the question: “If you were to believe everything that they (plaintiff’s witnesses) said to be true * * If the jury believed a part of plaintiff’s testimony, less than everything, then the part which the jury believed, being less than everything, was not described as unfit for human beings and the trial court should have instructed that in such event the verdict must be in favor of the defendant.
*54To the contrary, the trial court instructed the jury2 to return a verdict in favor of the plaintiff if it believed that “any of the acts of negligence alleged in plaintiff’s complaint”3 were true. Each of the acts of negligence alleged in plaintiff’s complaint is less than everything testified to by plaintiff’s witnesses. For example, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant failed to provide a device or other means for removing blood from the plaintiff’s mouth, plaintiff then being unconscious. The defendant did not admit that the testimony relating to this alleged act of negligence in and of itself constituted care unfit for human beings, but that the failure to provide such a device or other means constituted negligence only if the jury believed that in addition thereto plaintiff was restrained in a position that made it impossible for blood and other matter to be voluntarily expelled, and that the plaintiff was unconscious to the extent that his gag reflex was suppressed and that means were not employed to assist plaintiff to regain consciousness and that defendant or his *55nurses failed to attend plaintiff while plaintiff was so restrained, unconscious, his gag reflex suppressed, and a device or other means was not used for removing blood and other matter.
Inasmuch as it is now impossible to determine the basis for the verdict of the jury, I am of the opinion this cause must be reversed with directions that the defendant be granted a new trial.

. The defendant testified on cross examination :
“Q. Dr. Stallcup, you have heard the testimony of Mrs. Coscarart and Mr. Cos-carart here today, have you not? A. Yes, I have.
“Q. And the testimony of the sisters? A. Yes.
“Q. I take it that you do not agree that what they have described actually occurred, is that right? A. Not at all.
“Q. If one were to believe that everything that they said was true about the occurrence that day, there would be no question in your mind that the care that was given to this patient didn’t measure up to just the minimum standard, would it? A. According to my observation, there is no doubt in my mind about it being true.
*****
“Q. * * * If you were to believe everything that they said to be true, then, there is no doubt, is there, that the care which was given, presuming what they said to be true, there is no doubt in your mind that the care that was given did not measure up to the standard for your profession at that time? A. Mr. von Am-mon, I am not going to say my opinion on that because I can’t imagine anyone following out the procedures that have been followed, that have been stated here today, in the care of a patient, any man taking care of human beings.
“Q. It isn’t conceivable to you that any professional person in the practice of dental surgery or anything else could have given the type of care that was described in this courtroom? A. I can’t believe it.”

.- The court instructed:
“If under the evidence and the instructions of the Court you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was guilty of any of the acts of negligence alleged in the plaintiff’s complaint, you . must then determine whether such negligence, if any, pioximately caused or contributed to cause any disease or damage which you may find was suffered by the plaintiff.
• “The 'proximate cause of an injury is that cause which in a natural and continuous - sequence, unbroken by any efficient" intervening cause, produces the disease' or damage and without which the result Would not'have occurred.
'“If under the evidence and the instructions' of this Court you find that the defendant, Lester B. Stallcup, was guilty of •' ¿py of the acts of negligence alleged in the pidió tiff’s complaint and if you further find that such negligence, if any, proximately caused or contributed to cause any disease or damage to the plaintiff, then it becomes your duty to arrive at a sum of money which will adequately compensate the plaintiff for such disease or damage, if any.
“In arriving at such sum of money, if any, to which the plaintiff is entitled, you may take into consideration * *

. The acts of negligence alleged:
“1 — In that he caused plaintiff to be restrained in a position which made it difficult, if not impossible, for plaintiff to expel blood and other matter from his mouth voluntarily;
“2 — In that he failed to provide a device or other means for removing blood and other matter from plaintiff’s mouth, plaintiff then and there being unconscious;
“3 — In. that he failed to employ any means to assist plaintiff to regain consciousness ;
“4 — In that he failed to attend plaintiff while plaintiff was unconscious and was strapped to a bench as. hereinabove set forth;
“5 — In that he failed to provide to plaintiff the care and treatment usually and customarily provided to persons in plaintiff’s condition of unconsciousness following the extraction of four, wisdom teeth.