Court Opinion

ID: 9605328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:33:58.677283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:27.581923
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
dissenting, with whom RABINO WITZ, Justice, joins.
It is uncontroverted that Mrs. Baker told Nurse Elliot that Mr. Baker may have taken a half a bottle of pills. Elliot may have relayed this information to Dr. Werner. If so, Dr. Werner had the duty, as he acknowledges, to take further action. If Elliot did not communicate this critical statement to Dr. Werner she plainly was negligent for failing to do so.
Today’s opinion rejects these conclusions. It reasons, first, that if Dr. Werner were told that Mr. Baker may have taken a half a bottle Dr. Werner might have been justi*269fied in ignoring the statement. That conclusion, however, is not one which a reasonable jury could have reached for all the evidence on the point was to the effect that the doctor had the duty to take further action (as opposed to sending the patient home) if he had information that half a bottle of pills may have been ingested. The majority opinion’s other explanation is that, assuming Elliot did not tell the doctor that Baker may have taken half a bottle, her omission might have been reasonable. This too, is unpersuasive. All of the testimony relating to the standard of care of a nurse in this situation was that the nurse had the obligation to pass the information relating to the possible consumption of one half a bottle of pills on to the doctor. She is no more free than the doctor would be to guess that half a bottle means ten pills, or a few more, or any particular nonlethal dose.1
For these reasons I conclude that the jury’s verdict was necessarily inconsistent and that a new trial is required.

. In fact, Baker’s prescription was filled in bottles containing 100 pills. The evidence was that 30 pills would be lethal and 20 would be life threatening.