Court Opinion

ID: 9548982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:11:33.930831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:41.957733
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING WALTERS, Chief Judge. Plaintiff, on motion for rehearing, calls attention to our statement in the original opinion that defendant did not take or read another kidney x-ray of decedent after the March 1978 urogram. She points out that Dr. Sheppeck made a second urogram in March 1979, and reported that the right kidney was absent in the x-ray. It had, of course, been removed in January 1979. Our earlier opinion should have added that no other kidney x-ray was taken or read by defendant after March 1978 and before the kidney was removed. We are not told the significance of the fact that Dr. Sheppeck read another urogram after the kidney removal. In her brief in chief, plaintiff contended that “the tort continued until January 15, 1979.” How does our failure to mention the urogram read by defendant in March 1979, after the kidney had been removed, affect our holding that defendant did not render continuing treatment of decedent with respect to interpreting the March 1978 urogram? Moreover, what would a comparison of the two x-rays have shown, if a comparison had been done, other than that the kidney was present in the 1978 x-ray and absent in 1979? Such a comparison hardly establishes a practice of re-reading diagnostic x-ray films when the organ to be diagnosed does not exist beyond the first x-ray. The other points raised by plaintiff on rehearing are mere re-argument of alleged disputed facts. We repeat, no evidence, other than plaintiff’s hearsay assertions that another doctor would testify that the 1978 x-ray had been improperly interpreted, was offered by plaintiff at the motion for summary judgment or to dismiss. The suit, on its face, was untimely filed. The cause of action could be saved only by showing: (1) that defendant was engaged in a tort continuing at least until July 1978, or (2) that defendant misread the March 1978 urogram, or (3) that defendant fraudulently concealed or negligently represented a cancerous condition existing in March 1978. The first condition was not shown; either of the circumstances of the third condition cannot be considered unless there is a genuine issue raised concerning the second condition. Plaintiff presented no admissible, acceptable or satisfactory evidence at the motion hearing to create an issue of fact regarding misinterpretation of the 1978 urogram, so as to toll the statute. The purpose of a motion for rehearing is not to go over the same ground already presented on the main appeal in hopes of wearing down an appellate court. The judgment is again AFFIRMED.