Court Opinion

ID: 9778608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:13:51.694246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:12.098682
License: Public Domain

*703EAGER, Judge
(concurring in result).
I£ the allegations of this petition consist only of general negligence, and if “proof of all the averments * * * would not * * * make a submissible case,” then the judgment of dismissal should be affirmed. I would see nothing to be gained by permitting the plaintiff to prove at the trial merely what he has alleged, and then be cast on a directed verdict. I agree fully with the ruling in the divisional opinion that no res ipsa situation is presented; but I am not convinced that a strictly medical malpractice case of this type may properly be pleaded solely in terms of general negligence. Under our present discovery rules (Rules 56-62), V.A.M.R. plaintiff is given ample opportunity to determine the facts and to state specific negligence in this class of cases. (See discussion, 27 Mo.Law Review, 52-54, Practice and Procedure in Missouri — Divilbiss.)
I feel, however, giving to this petition the benefit of a liberal construction (State ex rel. Becker v. Koerner, Mo.App., 181 S.W. 2d 1004, and cases cited), and of such inferences as may reasonably be drawn from its allegations, that it states, rather scantily, the substance of a charge of negligent error in diagnosis. That, of course, is specific negligence. The allegation that defendant stated that the baby was dead and that this fact necessitated its removal, is a statement of defendant’s expressed and then present diagnosis; the allegation that the baby was delivered alive and normal, is a statement that the diagnosis was wrong; negligence, generally, is alleged in all acts of the defendant, including the “prenatal care.” Perhaps the most tenuous inference to be drawn upon such a theory is that of causation, i. e., that the supposed negligent error in diagnosis, by means of the operation, anesthetic, etc., caused the death. Viewed in this light, the petition may be subject to a motion to make more definite and certain.
Plaintiff would probably have a most difficult time in proving a submissible case on this theory. Williams v. Chamberlain, Mo., 316 S.W.2d 505, 512; Sibert v. Boger, Mo., 260 S.W.2d 569, 571. That, however, is not our problem here. In my view the motion to dismiss should have been overruled, and the judgment should now be reversed and the cause remanded.