Court Opinion

ID: 9584440
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:48:17.782389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:51.292234
License: Public Domain

*428CuRREE, J. .
(concurring). Wisconsin follows the general, rule that an original tort-feasor whose, negligence causes :inj,ury to another may be .held liable for .any enhancement of.the original injury due to negligence or mistaken treatment on the part of the physician, in whose medical care the injured person may have been placed. Hooyman v. Reeve (1919), 168 Wis. 420, 170 N. W. 282. The two releases execüted by the plaintiff to Pfanku and his insurance carrier released all claims of the plaintiff for the injuries, pain and suffering, and death of plaintiff’s wife which resulted from the accident. These releases, therefore, under the authority of Hooyman v. Reeve, supra, released any claim the .plaintiff might have had against Pfanku and his insurance carrier for the enhancement of plaintiff’s injuries as the result of alleged malpractice, as well as for the original. injuries caused by Pfanku and the pain and suffering endured before the defendant physicians assumed the medical care of plaintiff’s wife.
As pointed out in the court’s opinion herein, Pfanku and the defendant physicians are not joint torUfeasors but consecutive tort-feasors. Nevertheless, as to part of plaintiff’s damages there may be joint liability, and this is regardless of whether the damages caused by Pfanku, as distinguished from those resulting from the alleged malpractice, are capable of separate ascertainment or are indivisible. This joint liability extends to any damages which may have been caused by the defendant physicians’ act of malpractice in enhancing the original injuries sustained as the result of Pfanku’s alleged negligence because of the fact that Pfanku, as well as the defendant physicians, is' liable for the same.
If any of the two amounts of money paid to plaintiff as consideration for the two releases covered damages arising in this field of joint liability, then, as to such, the defendant physicians' are' entitled to have such amounts credited upon any damages awarded by the jury against them. Applying equitable principles, the amounts so received by plaintiff in *429consideration for the two releases should be applied first against any damages for which Pfanku alone may have been responsible, and the excess only applied against the damages lying within the sphere of joint liability.
I, therefore, concur in the determination that it was error for the trial court to have sustained the demurrer.