Court Opinion

ID: 9831616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:14:54.728879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:36.488136
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Counsel for appellant complains of a statement made in the original opinion that the controlling issue in this case was decided by the jury upon conflicting testimony. It is insisted that the case is one where the evidence is wholly insufficient to support the findings of the jury, and that a peremptory instruction should have been given in favor of the appellant.
As the plaintiff in the case, the appellee was required to prove the following facts: (1) That his injuries were the result of'an X-ray burn; (2) that this burn was caused by the treatment administered by the appellant; and (3) that the burn was due to the negligence of the appellant.
Drs. Shelmire and Shackleford both testified that appellee’s injuries were caused by an X-ray burn. The appellant testified that they were not. In passing upon the conflict thus presented in the testimony, the jury accepted as true the testimony of Drs. Shelmire and Shackleford and found that appellee’s injuries were the result of an X-ray burn.
The next question is: Who caused that burn? The undisputed facts show that the appellee had been treated six times by the appellant by the use of 'an X-ray machine a few days before the evidences of the burn appeared. Appellee testified that no one except the appellant had treated him with such a machine. That, in effect, meant that there was no possibility of an X-ray burn from any other source. While he admitted the treatments, appellant stated that under the method adopted by him there could have been no burn except upon the small area, about three-fourths of an inch in diameter’, which was under treatment. The jury concluded from that state of the evidence that the burn was caused by the appellant.
The third question is: Was the burn the fesult of negligence on the part of the appellant in giving those treatments? There is nothing in the testimony of the appellee tending to show negligence in the treatments, unless it be in what he said about the character of his injuries, and the method adopted by the appellant to protect the untreated portions of his face and neck. The appellant, who was an expert in the use of X-ray machines, testified:
“I say I did not burn him. I don’t know who else treated him at any time. During those six treatments in my office no one except myself operated that machine or did anything to him. No one else in my Office could have burned him. It couldn’t have happened. If it was done in my office certainly I did It. If I had done it, it would have been negligence and I would have known it. The time of its showing up after treatment varies from six to ten days. The only way I know he did not get burned in the office is because I know it was a physical impossibility, because of the manner in which the treatment was applied. We had a heavy brass cone under the tube, and there is a little hole through a place of the cone which came down on the tissue.”
*830in addition to what the appellant here says, we have the fact of an injury — an X-ray burn over an area that was not under treatment and which the jury might have concluded should hare been protected from exposure to the light in the X-ray tube.
 But it is strenuously insisted that the doctrine res ipsa loquitur has no application to cases of this character. It may be that no inference of negligence can be drawn from the mere fact that the parts necessarily exposed for treatment are burned. But here. we have a situation, according to the evidence, where a burn has appeared over a much larger area than that which was being treated. We think that fact is a circumstance which the jury had a right to consider in connection with the other testimony in determining whether or not the appellant was negligent in not using the proper covering to prevent the exposure of the untreated portions of the appellee’s neck. It is not contended that such protection was impossible or that the parts now showing evidences of the hum were necessarily exposed to the light of the machine. There is eminent authority to sustain that view of the case. Sweeney v. Erving, 228 U. S. 233, 33 S. Ct. 416, 57 L. Ed. 815, Ann. Cas. 1914D, 905; Shockley v. Tucker, 127 Iowa, 456, 103 N. W. 360; Moore v. Steen, 102 Cal. App. 723, 283 P. 833 and cases there cited.
Among the special issues submitted, there are three -in which the jury was required to pass upon the general negligence alleged in the petition. The questions were:
(1). “Do you find and believe from a preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiff Ed Eschelman received any X-ray burns complained of on the parts of his body other than the two parts treated by the defendant, Dr. J. M. Martin? Answer: Tes.”
(2). “Do you find and believe from a preponderance of the evidence that such X-ray burns to other than those treated parts were caused by the negligence, if any, as that term has been defined to you herein, upon the part o'f the defendant, Dr. J. M. Martin? Answer: Yes.”
In answering the third question, the jury found that such negligence was a proximate -cause of the injuries sustained by the’plaintiff. • Those answers were, we think, supported by the evidence and are sufficient to furnish a basis for a judgment in favor of the appellee for whatever damages the jury may have found that he sustained by reason of the appellant’s treatment. It is immaterial that there was no direct testimony sufficient to support any of the other special issues involving specific acts of negligence.
The motion will be overruled.