Court Opinion

ID: 9633245
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:39:43.793937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:31.493391
License: Public Domain

SIMMS, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
« While I concur with the majority opinion in it’s analysis and application of the law of “informed consent,” I must respectfully dissent to the majority view that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is not relevant to the facts of this case.
In St. John’s Hospital and School of Nursing v. Chapman, Okl., 434 P.2d 160 (1967) this Court approved the use of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in medical malpractice cases, where the circumstances warrant its application, when we held in the following syllabi:
“3. Actions involving malpractice or hospitals may not, in a proper case, escape the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur.”
“6. Ordinarily, the weight of the rebuttal evidence offered by the defendant, to overcome the inference of negligence on the part of the defendant, which arises under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, as well as the weight of the inference, is for the jury. Unless all reasonable minds are bound to reach the same conclusion, it is the jury, in a jury trial, that is to determine whether or not the explanation offered by the defendant is ‘satisfactory’ enough to overcome the inference of negligence, even though the defendant’s evidence be undisputed.”
In the body of Chapman we find the following language:
“. . . under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur the inference of negligence on the part of the defendant is allowed only where, in the circumstances presented by the plaintiff, the trier of the facts could logically infer that the defendant had failed to exercise ordinary care in the circumstances or, in the ordinary course of things, the injury or damage would not have occurred; . . . ”
Fundamentally, the three conditions necessary to application of res ipsa loquitur in *1373the trial of a case are concisely stated to be that the event involved:
1. Must be of a kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone’s negligence;
2. Must be caused by an instrumentality or agency within the exclusive control of the defendant;
3. Must not have been due to any voluntary action or contribution on the part of the plaintiff. Prosser, Torts, 199 (2nd Ed. 1955)
Appellant’s evidence in the trial court, which must be accepted as true for the purposes of a motion for directed verdict and renewed demurrer, tended to establish that:
“1. Plaintiff was in general good health when he entered the hospital.
2. Plaintiff was sedated when wheeled into the operating room.
3. Defendant anesthesiologist injected the anesthetic in administering the brachial plexus block anesthetic.
4. Defendant, Harold Stratton, intended the needle to reach the nerve area but did not intend to damage or traumatize the nerve. He intended to bathe the nerve in the solution.
Í. At the time of the injection in the brachial plexus, plaintiff felt a sharp pain, followed by another sharp pain, which caused him to pass out.
6. Evidence that injury to the nerve can be caused by the needle during injections.
7. It is not necessary or proper to inject or traumatize the nerve in administering the anesthetic.
8. Injury does not normally result from a proper administration of the anesthetic.
9. The growing weakness in plaintiff’s arm was due to injury to the axillary nerves in the area of the brachial plexus, the same area injected by the defendant.”
This evidence, all admittedly favorable to plaintiff, is such that the jury could infer that the injury to plaintiff resulted from the injury to the nerve from the administration of the anesthetic; that such injury does not occur and is not common in the absence of negligence; that the alleged instrumentality causing the injury was in the sole control of defendants; and, that the injury was not due to any voluntary act on plaintiffs part.
Brief of both appellant and appellee direct our attention to the California case of Bardessono v. Michels, 3 Cal.3d 780, 91 Cal.Rptr. 760, 478 P.2d 480 (1970). Bar-dessono involved a series of injections of cortisone and xylocaine deep into the sore area of the right shoulder, and more particularly, to the brachial plexus, with resultant paralysis.
The Supreme Court of California approved the giving of a res ipsa loquitur instruction, stating:
“The record in this case contains substantial evidence that plaintiff’s tendonitis condition was not common place; that injections of cortisone and a local anesthetic (xylocaine) were the normal, common treatment for this condition, and that untoward results were extremely rare.”
“This case, therefore, involves a relatively simple, rather than complex, procedure in which the physician injected a fluid into the body. The jury could accordingly rely upon its common knowledge in determining whether the accident was of a kind that would ordinarily not have occurred in the absence of someone’s negligence. Thus, the trial court properly instructed the jury that if it found from expert testimony, common knowledge, and all the circumstances that the injury was more probable than not the result of negligence, it could infer negligence from the happening of the accident alone.”
Appellee argues that Bardessono is not herein controlling because Bardessono holds for the proposition that res ipsa lo-quitur may only be applied where the surgical treatment is so common, simple, and *1374well known that it is within the knowledge of the ordinary layman. Further, that if the medical procedure is so unusual and complex as to require the testimony of an expert, res ipsa loquitur is not applicable.
I do not so construe Bardessono.
The following language is found in Bardessono, 91 Cal.Rptr. at page 761, 478 P.2d at page 481:
“The trial court properly followed the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in instructing the jury that it could infer negligence from the happening of the accident alone, if it found from the testimony of physicians called as expert witnesses, common knowledge, and all the circumstances, that the injury was more probably than not the result of negligence.” (E.A.)
Also, 91 Cal.Rptr. at page 768, 478 P.2d at page 488:
“Thus, the trial court properly instructed the jury that if it found from expert testimony, common knowledge, and all the circumstances that the injury was more probably than not the result of negligence, it could infer negligence from the happening of the accident alone.”
In Bardessono, the Supreme Court of California cites with approval, LaMere v. Goren, 233 Cal.App.2d 799, 801-802, 43 Cal.Rptr. 898 (1965); which case also involved an injection into the area of the brachial plexus.
In LaMere, supra, the trial court refused to give an instruction on res ipsa loquitur and the court of appeals reversed, holding that a res ipsa loquitur instruction based on expert testimony should have been given. In dictum, however, the court rejected a res ipsa instruction based upon common knowledge, for the reason that with respect to this particular type injection, “common knowledge of layman is not a reliable foundation.”
We believe the better rule to be, in determining whether the occurrence of an injury is of such a nature that it probably was the result of the negligence of someone under the res ipsa loquitur doctrine, the trier of fact may rely on both medical testimony and common knowledge. See, Clark v. Gibbons, 66 Cal.2d 399, 408, 58 Cal.Rptr. 125, 426 P.2d 525.
The same doctrine was adopted by this Court in Delk v. Gill, Okl., 462 P.2d 530 (1969) wherein was held:
“Plaintiff contends, in substance, that whether or not the evidence was sufficient to go to the jury on the question of whether or not defendant’s acts caused her condition, does not depend entirely upon the testimony of Dr. S, or any other expert witness, but that, under Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. Kelly, 194 Okl. 646, 153 P.2d 1010, proof of proximate cause 'need not rest entirely’ upon expert testimony, 'but may rest in part upon non-expert testimony.’ ”
It therefore follows that plaintiff, on retrial, assuming the evidence to be the same, should be permitted to go to the jury on the theory of res ipsa loquitur, under proper instructions.
I am authorized to state that Justice Hodges and Justice Barnes join in this opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.