Court Opinion

ID: 9756821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:02:16.041591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:31.529131
License: Public Domain

Vanderbilt, C. J.
(dissenting). The majority view fails to consider the effect of the consent given by Dr. Kadisch’s widow to the defendant, as part of the rental arrangement she made with the defendant for the doctor’s office with the consent and approval of the executor, to send out announcements to Dr. Kadisch’s patients notifying them that the defendant had taken over the doctor’s practice. This fact, it seems to me, took away the real value the records had for any future purchaser of the doctor’s practice.
These chart cards have some value in furnishing information about the patients concerned, but only to the doctor who is able to attract and hold these patients as his own. Thus, the real value in them to the new doctor lies in the right to announce to these persons that he has taken over the practice of their former physician, hoping they will be induced thereby to transfer their patronage to him. But the successive announcements of such a disposal of a deceased doctor’s practice to different doctors tend to destroy any possible value that might have attached to a single announcement.
The widow having once permitted the announcement that the defendant had taken over Dr. Kadisch’s practice, it is hard to conceive that there was any real value left in the ability to announce that still another had taken over the practice. Consequently, though the defendant acted improperly in converting the names to his own use, what he converted was, to my way of thinking, of nominal value only.
*205I -would modify the award of damages below to limit it to six cents.
For affirmance — Justices Heher, Oliphant, Wachenfeld, Burling, Jacobs and Weintraub — 6.
For reversal — Chief Justice Vanderbilt — 1.