Court Opinion

ID: 9514757
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:51:32.168022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:20.594076
License: Public Domain

KONENKAMP, Justice
(concurring in result).
[¶ 63.] The method by which we reach a decision is as important as the decision itself. See Karl N. Llewellyn, The Common- Law Tradition, Deciding Appeals 274 (1960). For, whether it be true or false, our method may well shape the outcomes of cases to follow. To decide a question, we first categorize the problem. If a tort, we ask, what type of tort? Both the rules and the consequences applying to one tort may not apply to another. Here, we must distinguish a negligent act from an intentional one, a medical error from" an act of barbarity. If we blur the differences, if we degrade the methods to distinguish those differences, the legitimate process of law degenerates.
1. Rape is Not an Act of Professional Negligence
[¶ 64.] Can rape and sexual misconduct constitute professional negligence if committed by a physician in the course of a gynecological exam? The answer is plainly no. No court has ever held otherwise under these circumstances. Although this Court ventures to answer it, the question before us today is not whether intentional acts constitute medical “malpractice.” It is true that in Bruske v. Hille, 1997 SD 108, ¶ 13, 567 N.W.2d 872, 876-77, interpreting the medical malpractice statute of limitations, we wrote, “any professional misconduct” establishes malpractice. - That statute covered “malpractice, error, mistake or1 failure to cure, whether based upon contract or tort....” SDCL 15-2-14.1. We held that acts alleged as intentional, but sounding in negligence, were covered by the limitations period. Bruske 1997 SD 108, ¶¶ 13-14, 567 N.W.2d at 877. There, the plaintiff sought to evade the medical malpractice statute of limitations by cloaking her suit as something other than a malpractice claim. We thought the statute broad enough to encompass the substance of plaintiffs complaint in spite of her attempts to artfully draft around it.
*614[¶ 65.] In this case, solely an action for negligence, the majority opinion groups negligence and intentional conduct into one category: malpractice. The plaintiffs themselves disclaimed any theory of intentional conduct. They dropped their intentional tort counts, and ostensibly for insurance coverage purposes, couched their claims as negligence. Accordingly, the trial court defined malpractice for the jury as negligence. Now, the Court’s opinion redefines it. With the jury’s decision rendered wholly on a theory of negligence, we are not, in retrospect, at liberty to change the definition in order to uphold the verdicts.
' [¶ 66.] At trial, the jury was instructed that the plaintiffs seek to recover damages “based upon their claims of professional negligence. Such negligence is commonly referred to as malpractice.” (Emphasis added.) Included in the court’s instructions as an essential element of proof was the requirement that the plaintiffs show the “defendant was negligent.” In defining professional negligence, the court instructed:
In performing professional services for a patient, a physician has the duty to possess that degree of knowledge and skill ordinarily possessed by physicians of good standing engaged in the same line of practice in the same or similar locality. .
A physician also has the duty to use that care and skill ordinarily exercised under similar circumstance by physicians in good standing engaged -in the same line of practice in the same or similar locality and to be as diligent in an effort to accomplish, the purpose for ■which the physician is employed.
A failure to perform any such duty is negligence.
In another instruction the court told the jury: “Plaintiffs allege that the defendant was negligent and deviated from the recognized standard of care by engaging in inappropriate and improper sexual contact with each plaintiff during her gynecological examination.” Rape and sexual exploitation in the course of a pelvic exam are intentional acts utterly beyond the concept of failure to use due care and skill. Deborah S.S. v. Yogesh N.G., 175 Wis.2d 436, 499 N.W.2d 272 (Wis.Ct.App.1998).
2. Plaintiffs’ Alternative Theory Will Sustain Verdicts
[¶ 67.] The court instructed the jury on the plaintiffs’ alternative basis for their negligence action: “[P]laintiffs allege that the defendant was negligent and deviated from the recognized standard of care for gynecological examinations when he utilized improper positions, procedures and methods in conducting those examinations.” The plaintiffs argue that it is not necessary to reach the question of whether sexual misconduct during a gynecological examination constitutes medical malpractice because their claims were not based solely on sexual misconduct but also on the improper procedures and methods Engel-mann used in conducting his exams.
[¶ 68.] Engelmann was acquitted of the rape charges against him in his criminal case. In this civil action, he continued to deny any sexual misconduct. He claimed the procedures he used were medically necessary and the plaintiffs simply misper-ceived his actions. According to him, Bertsch and Martinmaas had a suspicious bodily discharge and during the course of his pelvic exam he used the “gauze procedure” to extract some of the discharge substance. He said the women mistook this procedure for rape. Nonetheless, the jury returned verdicts for the plaintiffs. These general verdicts did not specify whether the jury believed that Bertsch and Martinmaas were raped and that Froning was sexually exploited, or whether the jury only concluded that Engelmann’s unorthodox “gauze procedure” and “uterine massage” employed in examining the women fell below the standard of care, as the plaintiffs’ experts testified.
[¶ 69.] Engelmann conceded that he invented his “gauze procedure.” He knew *615no physician who used it, received no training for it, and cited no medical authority prescribing it. He admitted also that his procedure was a “mistake” and “wrong,” but clung to his assertion that it did not violate the standard of care. The medically unnecessary and embarrassing “knee-chest” position Froning was required to assume on two occasions was also a deviation from the standard of care according to the expert witnesses. As for damages, the plaintiffs’ experts acknowledged that although painful and humiliating, Engelmann’s aberrant medical procedures would leave no permanent physical injuries, but nonetheless the emotional trauma could be significant and long lasting.
[¶ 70.] Is it possible that the jurors were unconvinced of the plaintiffs’ allegations of sexual misconduct and simply rendered their verdicts based on expert testimony that Engelmann’s examinations deviated from the standard of care? Perhaps the large verdicts suggest that the jury believed the worst allegations against Engel-mann. But we cannot truly know which theory the jurors accepted. When it comes to reviewing general jury verdicts we have written numerously that if any reason exists to support them, they should be upheld. See Builders Supply Co., Inc. v. Carr, 276 N.W.2d 252, 257 (S.D.1979) (citation omitted).
[¶ 71.] Most federal courts adhere to the rule that a general verdict will be upheld only if there is substantial evidence to support each theory of liability submitted to the jury. These courts take the position that, as an appellate court cannot plumb the minds of jurors, a general verdict possibly based on an improper theory of liability must be reversed. Known as the “two-issue rule,” it has been endorsed several times by the United States Supreme Court beginning in the Nineteenth Century: “[The verdict’s] generality prevents us from perceiving upon which plea they found. If, therefore, upon any one issue error was committed, either in the admission of evidence, or in the charge of the court, the verdict cannot be upheld.... ” Maryland v. Baldwin, 112 U.S. 490, 493, 5 S.Ct. 278, 280, 28 L.Ed. 822, 823 (1884). See also Sunkist Growers, Inc. v. Winckler & Smith Citrus Prods. Co., 370 U.S. 19, 29-30, 82 S.Ct. 1130, 1136, 8 L.Ed.2d 305, 312 (1962); United New York & New Jersey Sandy Hook Pilots Ass’n v. Halecki, 358 U.S. 613, 619, 79 S.Ct. 517, 520, 3 L.Ed.2d 541, 545 (1959); Wilmington Star Mining Co. v. Fulton, 205 U.S. 60, 79, 27 S.Ct. 412, 419, 51 L.Ed. 708, 718 (1907). The Eighth Circuit recognizes a harmless error exception. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Berkley & Co., Inc., 620 F.2d 1247, 1258 n. 8 (8th Cir.1980).
[¶ 72.] In contrast, South Dakota belongs to a minority of jurisdictions giving a converse meaning to the two-issue rule, calling it the general verdict rule: when a jury returns a general verdict encompassing two or more issues and the verdict is supported by at least one issue, the case will not be reversed.8 In Allen v. McLain, 75 S.D. 520, 69 N.W.2d 390 (1955), this Court wrote:
In determining whether error was probably harmless or probably prejudicial an appellate court is guided by all the factors in the case bearing on the likelihood of prejudice, the force of the evidence to sustain the verdict, the assumptions that the jury was intelligent, and where the verdict is sustainable on more than one *616theory, that the verdict is based on the theory unaffected by error, where nothing in the case suggests the contrary.
Id. at 394 (citing 5 C.J.S. Appeal and Error, § 1677). In Allen, the appellant argued that the trial court’s instructions allowed the jury “to assume that mere negligence as distinguished from willful and wanton misconduct, would be sufficient ground for a recovery by the plaintiff _” Id. at 392. The jury brought in a general “verdict of liability.” The Court cited 5 C.J.S. Appeal and Error, § 1562(g), at 397: “As between proper and improper grounds or theories, a general verdict will often be presumed to be based on that ground or theory on which it can properly be sustained.” Allen, 69 N.W.2d at 395.
[¶ 73.] Over the years, we have cited Allen several times in upholding the rule. In Limmer v. Westegaard, 251 N.W.2d 676, 679 (S.D.1977), the Court wrote that “[w]ithout an affirmative showing in the record to the contrary, we construe the jury verdict as rendered upon the properly submitted legal theory of negligence, rather than upon one improperly submitted.” Likewise, in Eberle v. Siouxland Packing Co., Inc., 266 N.W.2d 256, 258 (S.D.1978) the rule was reiterated: “This court has repeatedly stated that, in a civil case, if a general verdict is handed down and the jury could have decided the case on two theories, one proper and one improper, the reviewing court will assume that it was decided on the proper theory.” As the trial court had instructed on both express and implied contract, the Court concluded that “even if the implied contract instructions were error, the giving of them was not reversible error .” Id. See also Plucker v. Kappler, 311 N.W.2d 924, 925 (S.D.1981) (verdict sustainable on theory other than the improper one); Dwyer v. Christensen, 77 S.D. 381, 92 N.W.2d 199, 202 (1958).
[¶ 74.] The general verdict rule controls in those actions brought on multiple theories of liability, where a single basis for damages applies. See First Interstate Dev. Corp. v. Ablanedo, 511 So.2d 536, 538 (Fla.1987). The rationale for the rule was discussed in Knisely v. Community Traction Co., 125 Ohio St. 131, 180 N.E. 654, 654 (1932):
The soundness or unsoundness of the rule cannot be argued upon principle, because no principle is involved. It is purely and solely a question as to whether the trial court will be held to a strict accountability to submit each and every issue in a case free from error, or whether, on the other hand, if one issue complete in itself as a cause of action or defense is submitted free from error, and there is nothing to indicate upon which issue a general verdict is grounded, other issues may be disregarded. The rule was designed to simplify the work of trial courts and to limit the range of error [in] proceedings.
In Orr v. Crowder, 173 W.Va. 335, 315 S.E.2d 593, 607 (1983), the court explained: “we fail to see the logic of a rule that requires a general verdict supported by one good theory of liability to be set aside. We are aware of no presumption that requires a court to assume that the jury has returned the verdict on the cause of action that was not supported by sufficient evidence. It must be remembered that in a civil case the burden of proof in order to prevail is only by a preponderance of the evidence.” On the question of prejudice the court wrote:
[A]ny supposed unfairness to the defendants arising from the adoption of the rule that permits the general verdict to be upheld if there is one valid cause of action to support it is cured by an additional corollary: that a defendant may submit a special interrogatory or verdict to require the jury to state its finding as to each theory. E.g., Codekas v. Dyna-Lift Co., 48 Cal.App.3d 20, 121 Cal.Rptr. 121 (1975); Colonial Stores, Inc. v. Scarbrough, 355 So.2d 1181 (Fla.1978).

Id.

[¶ 75.] Acquiescence in a general verdict form can be fatal to claims of error by either plaintiffs or defendants. If a party *617fails to request the separate submission of multiple theories, a new trial will not be granted where the jury has rendered a general verdict and the appellate court finds no error in one of the theories on which the jury was instructed. See Colonial Stores, 355 So.2d at 1185-86 (explaining that the “two-issue” rule is a “rule of policy, designed to limit the scope of proceedings on review.”).
[¶ 76.] As the Florida Supreme Court explained, “the remedy is always in the hands of counsel.” Counsel can request a special verdict on each theory in the case and object to a general verdict. Id. at 1186. If, however, counsel has neither requested a special verdict nor objected to submitting a general verdict form to the jury, then under the rule, a general verdict cannot be reversible error. Id. See also Whitman v. Castlewood Int’l Corp., 383 So.2d 618 (Fla.1980). The objection and the request will avoid the rule, even when the trial court declines the request.
[¶ 77.] Here, Engelmann did not seek a special interrogatory or object to a general verdict. As the verdict encompasses two liability issues, one of which the evidence supports, it should not be reversed. Perhaps this carries the general verdict rule to its logical extreme, but there is no claim here that the verdict amounts were excessive, the question instead being the propriety of averring as negligence rape and sexual misconduct.
[¶ 78.] Accordingly, I concur in result on Issue 1, and concur in full on the remaining questions.

. According to Lahm v. Burlington Northern Railroad Co., 6 Neb.App. 182, 571 N.W.2d 126, 131 (1997), "[t]he general verdict rule has been adopted and applied in the states of Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin to avoid reversing or remanding cases for a new trial where at least one determinative issue was properly submitted and could have supported the general verdict.” See, e.g. Larriva v. Widmer, 101 Ariz. 1, 415 P.2d 424, 430 (1966); Berger v. Southern Pac. Co., 144 Cal.App.2d 1, 300 P.2d 170, 172-73 (1956); Harper v. Henry, 110 Ohio App. 233, 169 N.E.2d 20, 26-28 (1959). See also 76 Am. Jur.2d Trials § 1149 at 120 (1975) (recognizing split of authority).